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Health minister to provide update on plan to resume surgeries

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix is expected to provide an update this week on the progress hospitals have made in contacting people about resuming surgeries after the May long weekend.
surgery
Of the 30,000 postponed non-urgent elective surgeries, approximately 4,000 are in the Island Health region.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix is expected to provide an update this week on the progress hospitals have made in contacting people about resuming surgeries after the May long weekend.

About 30,000 scheduled non-urgent elective surgeries and diagnostic and screening procedures have been postponed since March when health authorities cancelled them to free up hospital bed for a possible surge of COVID-19 cases.

Urgent and emergency surgeries have continued.

Of the 30,000 postponed non-urgent elective surgeries, approximately 4,000 are in the Island Health region.

The health authority said it began contacting patients last week to determine their health status and whether they were willing and able to move forward with surgery.

Patients are being rescheduled based on priority determined by their surgeon.

Surgeries will be scheduled with added time to accommodate additional cleaning and infection control measures.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said the health care system is showing other signs of returning to a pre-pandemic normal, with 5,354 visits to B.C. emergency rooms on Monday — the most visits since March.

“As you will recall, March 9, which was about a typical number, there were 6,559 visits,” he said. “That was reduced to 2,995 visits on April 6. And we are now significantly above even the 4,500 to 4,600 we have been in the last number of days.”

He said the numbers suggest that B.C. residents have a renewed confidence in going to hospital emergency rooms if they must.

ceharnett@timescolonist.com