Volume of surgeries completed in Northern Health hit hard by second wave

(Files by Dione Wearmouth-MyPGNow)

Across BC, more and more surgeries that were initially postponed due to the pandemic are being completed.

95% of surgeries that were postponed back on March 16th, 2020 in Northern Health have since been completed, as of February.

That trend mirrors the BC mark, as 95% of the 15,373 patients that had their surgical procedure postponed have since been treated.

However, the Northern region’s waitlist size for non-urgent surgeries this year is considerably higher and is now at 4,837 or 110% of the previous mark of 4,416.

The North’s waitlist for urgent surgeries, meaning those needing to be completed in a matter of six weeks, is also on the rise with 699 patients, 66 more than the 2019-20 mark.

According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, these numbers reflect the North’s ability to conduct surgeries within the second wave of the pandemic.

“The second wave affected Northern Health, a significant increase in COVID-19 cases meant that UHNBC and Mills Memorial Hospital in Terrace were particularly affected by increased patients in hospital which required staff to be redeployed from surgery to care for these patients,” reads the BCCDC website.

While UHNBC was dealing with two outbreaks, one in the Rehab Unit (Jan 5th- Jan 25th ) the other at the Internal Medicine Unit (Dec 29th- Feb 10th), approximately 82 surgeries were postponed across Northern Health.

This comes after the Prince George surgical centre added 280 hours of contracted capacity for surgeries between May 18th and February 4th, 2021.