Second-wave surgery delays not likely
Ability to add beds and resources means second wave unlikely to delay procedures
Although daily COVID-19 numbers are much higher now than last spring, it is unlikely that surgeries will need to be cancelled in B.C. during this second wave of the pandemic, according to the province's health minister.
“I don't expect that we will have to cancel scheduled surgeries,” Adrian Dix told Postmedia.
During the first wave, between March and June, 30,000 elective surgeries were postponed or not scheduled in British Columbia to keep beds open for possible COVID-19 patients, which created a long wait-list for people who needed those surgeries.
During this second wave, officials know more about COVID-19 and have had time to plan, Dix said.
“I don't expect (cancellations) to happen. I think it depends on our continuing success in, relatively speaking, managing the pandemic. And I think our ability to add beds and to add resources to the system has helped us in this period.”
B.C. has kept hospital beds open in case of a surge. Roughly one-quarter of surgery and ICU beds across the province are free, along with about seven per cent of all regular hospital beds.
If COVID -19 infections worsen, there are additional beds that can be added at spillover sites such as the Vancouver Convention Centre and mobile mini-hospital units.
At some point, though, B.C.'s challenge will be less about beds and more about the doctors and nurses required to care for a hypothetical increase in COVID-19 patients.
“So it's not a bed issue, but it is a people issue,” Dix said. “All of them have just been heroic, our doctors and nurses, and the level of stress has been high.”
Of course, all this could change and surgeries could be cancelled if COVID-19 numbers rise past unpredicted levels this winter.
“If COVID-19 were to get worse in some way, case count numbers would climb, hospitalizations would climb, of course that would have an effect on all of us,” Dix said.
“And that's why it's important that people follow the public health orders.”
Dix told reporters earlier this month that 90 per cent of the 30,000 surgeries postponed or delayed by COVID shutdowns last spring have now been completed.
He said in a recent interview, though, that the province may never reach 100 per cent because some people may no longer want the surgery, or at least not during a pandemic.
Health-care workers have been going “flat out” to make up for these cancelled surgeries, Dix added. He said operating room beds and hours have been expanded, and more surgeries are being performed.
Also last spring, cancer screenings were cancelled, which caused significant delays for some patients to find out whether they needed treatment.
But a similar disruption to diagnostic cancer tests is not expected this winter, Dr. Kim Nguyen Chi, the medical health officer at B.C. Cancer, said in a recent interview.
“I think we are actually managing through the second wave,” he said.
Experts used the time over the summer and fall to prepare for this second wave, and the potential that the pandemic could still worsen.
“So even if a whole cancer centre went down, it would be a challenge, but we have plans to treat all those people. So we've done tabletop exercises to ensure that we are ready and able to respond to any outbreak if something like that happened. That's the beauty of the time that we had to fully prepare,” Chi said.
Postmedia reported Sunday that cancer diagnoses are down in British Columbia right now, prompting Chi and others to encourage patients with delayed screening procedures or those with troubling symptoms to make a medical appointment soon.
Dix shares those concerns. “It's why we encourage people when they need to go to an emergency room to go to an emergency room, or when they need to be screened, to be screened,” he said.
“What we've been doing proactively on surgeries ... is reaching out (to those waiting for surgery). And, obviously, you cannot reach out to people who you don't know have cancer because they don't have a diagnosis.”