Canada’s largest pediatric hospital will begin “cautiously increasing capacity for scheduled surgical procedures” today following a recent months-long surge in patients with respiratory illnesses
Late last year, Toronto’s SickKids hospital announced it had “no choice but to reduce surgical activity for the time being” in order to “preserve critical care capacity” after its intensive care unit census hit more than 127 per cent capacity for several days and it saw an increase in the number of patients with higher acuity outside of the ICU
In a Nov. 11 statement, the hospital indicated that more than 50 per cent of its ICU patients were on ventilators
As a result, six of SickKids’ 16 operating rooms were shut down so staff could be redeployed to overwhelmed critical care and pediatric medicine units and its emergency department
The Hospital for Sick Children said this move allowed it to “prioritize urgent, emergency and the most time-sensitive surgeries,” including urgent endoscopy services and image-guided therapy
“We now find ourselves supporting our colleagues virtually to care for paediatric patients who would otherwise receive care at SickKids,” the hospital said at that time.
The decision to resume surgical procedures comes as the downtown hospital sees its “patient census stabilize and return to levels typically seen at this time of year,” SickKids said in a Jan. 15 release
More than 6,000 patients are currently waiting to have surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children. Families who are waiting for a surgery date will be contacted in the coming months to book their procedures
Dr. Simon Kelley, the hospital’s associate chief of perioperative services, clinical and ambulatory, said this time has been “some of the most challenging months” in the hospital’s history
“The extraordinary collaboration within the hospital and vital support of our partners across the system have allowed us to maintain emergent, urgent, and highly time-sensitive surgical services for our patients,” he said in the statement
“Despite resource constraints and changes to surgical operations, we are proud to have completed over 11,200 surgeries in 2022 – more than 92 per cent of our pre-pandemic volumes”
Several hospitals across the province were forced to limit pediatric admissions as well as cancel surgeries in the fall due to the viral surge. In early November, the Ontario Critical Care COVID-19 Command Centre also urged hospitals to admit teenage critical care patients to adult intensive care units to help create capacity at children’s hospitals seeing a surge in pediatric ICU patients
Joanna Lavoie, CP24 Web Content Writer
