Surgery slates on schedule in Oct.: Shared Health

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This article was published 06/10/2022 (1262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NO surgery slates are expected to be cancelled in October due to lack of staff.

For the past six months, except for Health Sciences Centre, most Winnipeg hospitals have been performing surgeries at or above pre-pandemic weekly volumes, Shared Health stated Wednesday. The chronic lack of staff at HSC means surgery slates aren’t back to full capacity, a Shared Health spokesman stated, citing “well-documented staffing challenges.”

“No significant interruption to surgical slates are anticipated this month, although individual cases remain subject to postponement for various reasons,” the spokesman said.

The province has promised to tackle the surgical backlog caused by the pandemic, and in late August the diagnostic and surgical recovery task force announced plans to send some waitlisted patients to Ontario and the U.S. for surgery.

Anticipated September surgery cancellations that were expected to be the result of unfilled anesthesiologist shifts were largely avoided. In August, Shared Health cautioned that 300 surgeries would likely have to be cancelled during September, but that didn’t happen.

“These shifts were all filled and the impact to surgery was minimal,” Shared Health said.