Elective surgery patients to wait weeks amid aged care crisis
Operating theatres across Melbourne have been closed to all but the most urgent surgery cases to free up beds for the growing number of aged care residents with coronavirus, and Premier Daniel Andrews is warning there will be major impacts on Victorians needing operations.
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Thousands of Victorian patients will have to wait at least weeks longer for surgery while hospitals instead race to save private nursing home residents from COVID-19.
Operating theatres across Melbourne have been closed to all but the most urgent surgery cases to free up beds and medical staff for spiralling numbers of critical coronavirus-positive nursing home residents.
With only Category 1 and the most urgent Category 2 operations continuing until further notice, a four-week surgery shutdown could see about 10,000 patients miss out on procedures such as non-urgent joint replacements or tonsil removals.
Hundreds of beds across major Melbourne hospitals — operated by Eastern Health and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital — have also been closed so experienced nurses can be diverted to work inside private aged care facilities with large outbreaks.
As major hospitals already feel the strain of having hundreds of staff missing while in isolation, Premier Daniel Andrews on Tuesday warned there would be major impacts on Victorians needing surgery.
“It is not easy to say people will have to wait longer for the care that they need, but the sickest patients must be treated the quickest and that is exactly what these arrangements will do,” Mr Andrews said.
“No government likes to be closing beds, but Eastern Health and the Eye and Ear Hospital are doing that …(so) staff can then go and work shifts in private aged care.”
One of the key aims of the shutdown is to ensure most state’s intensive care beds are available for coronavirus patients.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said surgeries that had already been booked would proceed wherever possible, as would IVF treatments.
She also foreshadowed an elective surgery blitz “as soon as it is safe to do so”.
There are currently 50,604 patients on Victoria’s elective surgery waiting list.
In the July-September quarter of 2019, Victorian hospitals undertook about 18,000 Category 2 and 13,000 Category 3 operations.
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons State Committee Chair Matthew Hadfield said Victoria’s surgeons would do whatever was necessary to assist the wider health system.
“There are many patients awaiting surgery who are going to have their treatment delayed across the lockdown areas now, and they will be extremely anxious as a result,” Mr Hadfield said.
“What we can contribute as surgeons is to reassure them that we will all work with the health services in the hospitals to make sure that every case that is actually urgent is correctly identified and still receive the treatment they require.
“Anyone who has his clinical conditions that deteriorate if they don’t have their surgery done in a timely fashion, they are the ones that we pick out and say ‘this is one we must do’.
“When the permanent restrictions ease, we are all here ready to deal with all the backlog as quickly as possible.”
Mr Hadfield warned patients whose lives are restricted while they waited for joint replacements and other life-changing operations would be highly anxious by the delays, so it important to reassure them surgeries would be fast-tracked as soon as possible.
An Eastern Health spokeswoman said its hospitals did not anticipate any impact to programs and services other than reductions to elective surgery.
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