Health Minister Adrian Dix says B.C. has almost wiped out the backlog of surgeries that developed during the pandemic and was made worse by last summer’s heatwave and November’s catastrophic floods.
At a news conference held by the B.C. government on Wednesday, Dix says 400 nurses and 100 technicians have been trained through the province’s surgical renewal program and efforts are underway to increase hiring.
“Through the dedicated efforts of everyone involved in delivering surgeries and the actions by British Columbians to slow the rapid spread of COVID-19 and ease pressures on our hospitals, over 337,000 surgeries were completed in the 12-month period ending March 31 – the most surgeries ever completed in a single year in B.C.,” said Dix.
“Every surgery is life-changing for the patient who receives it, and that’s why we made our surgical renewal commitment to patients.”
On March 16, 2020, non-urgent scheduled surgeries were postponed because of COVID-19 and resumed on May 18, 2020. Since then, additional surgical postponements were caused by subsequent waves of COVID-19, extreme weather and staff illness.
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The health minister says, however, that most of the surgeries postponed during the fifth wave of COVID-19 have now been performed.
Looking closer at the numbers provided by the B.C. government in regards to surgeries, the data suggests that 99.8 per cent of patients whose scheduled surgeries were postponed during the first wave and still wanted to pursue a surgical treatment had their surgeries, 96.2 per cent have had surgery if it was delayed in the second and third waves of COVID-19 and 78.9 per cent have had surgery if it was delayed in wave four or five.
Dix adds that 17,000 operating room hours were added last year, allowing completion of more than 52,000 urgent scheduled surgeries and over 72,000 unscheduled, emergency procedures.
Despite the progress being made by the province to clear the backlog of surgeries, 88,365 people remain on the waitlist. That figure has dropped since 2019-2020 when 93,903 patients were waiting, however, Dix acknowledges that the province is still not in the clear.
“These are significant achievements in fulfilling the commitment, but our work is not done,” notes Dix.
“We know that the impacts of the pandemic were not uniform across the surgical system. The work ahead of us now is to build on these achievements, continue to overcome our challenges and find new opportunities to deliver the surgeries patients need.”
More information on B.C.’s commitment to surgical renewal can be found online here.
With files from the Canadian Press.
CHEK News
