Some elective surgeries have been cancelled at Windsor Regional Hospital due to a lack of anaesthesiologists.
Chief of Staff Dr. Wassim Saad says two anaesthesiologists recently left due to a medical illness and moving out of town, which has left the hospital scrambling.
Ideally, he says there should be 25-26 anaesthesiologists, but now there are 20.
Up to this point, some patients have learned that their surgery was cancelled at the last minute, but moving forward, Dr. Saad says the hospital will slightly reduce the number of elective surgeries ahead of time starting in January as the hospital looks to recruit more anaesthesiologists.
Windsor Regional Hospital Chief of Staff Dr. Wassim Saad emphasizes, this does not impact emergencies.
"I don't want to raise alarm bells that emergency surgeries are in any way going to be affected because they are not," he says.
He says where the hospital was already spread thin, the sudden loss of two anaesthesiologists tipped the hospital over the edge.
Dr. Saad says the answer is to attract more anaesthesiologists.
"We are trying to stay ahead of this by actively recruiting and getting help from London with some of their anaesthesia trainees and recent graduates to help cover until we complete our full recruitment," he says.
The shortage of anaesthesiologists is not unique to Windsor, it is nation-wide.
Dr. Saad admits it is tough to recruit anaesthesiologists when competing with cities like Toronto where anaesthesiologists work free lance and don't have a commitment to one particular hospital.