Windsor Regional Hospital is making progress when it comes to catching up on its surgery backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest numbers show just over 5,200 procedures on the wait list — that's lower than before the pandemic when 5,346 surgeries were in the queue.
This from Chief of Staff Dr. Wassim Saad who says several measures have been implemented to bring numbers down including shifting minor surgeries out of the main operating room.
He says some positives have come from the pandemic.
"We're very excited about some of the measures that we're undertaking. A lot of this is born out of the pandemic. So if there are some positives that we can look at from this pandemic, it's forced us to be a little bit more creative with our use of our operating time. As a result of all of these measures, we've been able to keep that wait list down."
Saad says wait lists at other facilities continue to grow.
"Now it's obviously not great to have 5,000 people waiting for operations, but had we not implemented some of the measures that number could easily be double and in the 10,000 range. We know other organizations who've had their wait lists double as a result of these directives."
He says the hospital is currently in phase 2 of recovery, but is hoping to advance soon.
"We are currently at phase 2. So we're up to 70% and we are getting very close to meeting criteria for phase 3, in which case we can move up to 90%. The expectation is that we could be there within the next week or two. Then, hopefully by spring or early summer, we'll be back up to 100%."
Saad adds, the hospital is proud to report all urgent cancer surgeries continued during the pandemic while some facilities were forced to put them on hold.