Midland’s Georgian Bay General Hospital addressing surgery backlog created by COVID-19 shutdown

The surgical department at Georgian Bay General Hospital is back and operating at full capacity.

Dr. Vikram Ralhan, chief of staff at GBGH, said he hopes the return to 100 per cent will allow them to eliminate the backlog of surgeries and procedures that accumulated during the spring shutdown.

“There is still a bit of a backlog that we are working to catch up on. We are finding creative solutions to increase the number of cases we can do,” said Ralhan.

Elective surgeries and procedures resumed at the Midland hospital in mid-June. However, GBGH was only authorized to schedule the operating room at half its normal capacity.

In early November, the hospital was authorized to return to 100 per cent capacity, doubling the number of surgeries and procedures it can do.

“We are working collaboratively with our surgeons, nurses and hospital leaders to figure out what the best approach is to be able to address the backlog,” said Ralhan.

One of the challenges the hospital faces is working around the increased downtime between surgeries and procedures. That time has to be maintained in order to allow for proper cleaning and sanitization.

According to Ralhan, staff are discussing the possibility of extending the hours of the operating room to allow for more surgeries to be completed in a day, and possibly creating an endoscopy day on Saturdays to tackle that specific waiting list. 

They are also working on continuing to expand the GBGH surgical program.

Prior to the pandemic, GBGH opened up a second operating room two days a week, in addition to the primary operating room. 

“We are continuing to do that. We have a second OR open,” said Ralhan. “As long as there isn’t a ministry mandate to ramp down again, our hope is that we can continue on with our optimization and expansion plans.”

Increased COVID-19 case counts are forcing the hospital to reassess protocols. While it currently isn’t mandatory for surgical patients to receive a COVID-19 test prior to their procedure, that may change.

“We are evaluating that,” said Ralhan. “It’s a constant moving target; as case counts change, requirements change.”