Angus hospital restarts surgery as staff return from the virus frontline

Staff redeployed to Ninewells during the Covid crisis are returning to Stracathro Hospital in Angus, allowing surgery to restart.

Operating theatres and the hospital’s minor surgical unit have reopened as NHS Tayside work to get services suspended during the pandemic back up and running.

Medics from the Brechin hospital were redeployed during the pandemic, with their skills put to use as part of the health board’s dedicated response at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

With the number of patients with Covid-19 requiring hospital care at Ninewells stabilising, NHS Tayside said the team has been able to return to their specialist roles at Stracathro, enabling full surgical services to resume. The busy hospital undertakes planned operations spanning innovative orthopaedic surgery, plastic surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery and dental surgery.

Four operating theatres and the surgical minor procedures unit are fully operational and the surgical unit ward will also be open for in-patients and day cases.

Lesley Forsyth, clinical group manager at Stracathro Regional Treatment Centre, said: “We are delighted to welcome our staff back to Stracathro.

“The remobilisation of services also sees the restart of elective orthopaedic operations every week at Stracathro.”

Some 100 orthopaedic procedures, including joint replacements, can be carried out every month at the hospital.

Staff from the surgical unit at Stracathro Hospital.