BARRIE, ONT. -- After months of standing ready for a possible crush of COVID-19 patients, community hospitals in Orangeville, Alliston, and Midland are beginning to ramp up services again.
While larger hospitals started adding back services last week, smaller facilities have only been performing emergency surgeries. The goal was to ensure hospitals could maintain enough inpatient beds, medication, and personal protective equipment.
Dr. Vikram Ralhan, the Chief of Staff at Georgian Bay General Hospital, expects to be running at 40-60 percent.
"This is phase one of our plan that we've been approved for," Ralhan explains. "The phases do extend further on to eventually go back to hopefully, pre-COVID levels once things settle down, and the kinks are worked out."
Cataract surgeries, colonoscopies, and laparoscopic procedures like gallbladder surgeries are all routine at medium-sized hospitals.
In Alliston, there's a backlog of about 200 patients. The hospital will schedule an extra day of procedures each week to try and catch up.
All patients will go through a careful COVID-19 screening and triage process, so the most urgent cases go to the front of the line.
Hospitals have also developed plans for scaling procedures down again for a second wave of the coronavirus.
