Windsor Regional Hospital is reporting a large decrease in the surgical waitlist compared to pre-COVID numbers.
During the WRH Board of Directors Meeting on Thursday afternoon, the numbers were shown comparing the surgical waitlist from March 2020, to August 2023.
As of March 19, 2020 there were 5,346 patients waiting for surgery. As of August 21, 2023, there are 3,223 patients waiting for surgery. A reduction of 40 per cent.
The hospital is also showing a reduction in the number of 'long waiter' patients. A long waiter is described as patients who are waiting greater than their priority timeline.
As of August 2023, there was an 11 per cent reduction in long waiters compared to March 2023.
In order to reduce the waitlist and the long waiter patients, Windsor Regional Hospital has implemented strategies such as running certain surgery rooms longer into the evenings, and operating on Saturday's and Sunday's.
David Musyj, President and CEO of Windsor Regional Hospital, says there has been improvements in the waitlist.
"Prior to COVID we had close to 5,400 hundred patients waiting for surgery as of March 19, 2020. As of August of this year, a positive note, we're down by 40 per cent, down to 3,200."
Musyj says they keep an eye on the long waiters, who are individuals waiting greater than their priority timeline as set by the province.
"As of August 21, there's been an 11 per cent reduction of long waiters as compared to March of 2023. So we've had a significant improvement in the overall number of patients that are waiting for surgery, plus those who are above target has been dramatically improved."
Rosemary Petrakos, Vice President of Surgery and Family Services, says the hospital continues to work to improve the waitlist.
"The highest number of long waiter cases by service, we've been running those rooms later into the evening. We've also been operating on Saturday's and Sunday's, even over the summer, and we've got some scheduled in September."
Musyj says there is still a lot of work to do, but the numbers show they are trending in the right direction.
Orthopedic surgery had the highest volume of patients waiting for surgery and the highest volume of long waiters, the hospital has been able to reduce those long waiters by 269 patients.