Tuesday September 19, 2023 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc. | Island Social Trends
Today BC Health has boasted that BC summer surgical renewal records have been broken, “bringing more patients surgeries they need”.
“B.C.’s surgical-renewal strategy delivered a record volume of summer surgeries and continues to deliver more surgeries than ever throughout the province,” it was stated in a news release today.
Through the surgical-renewal strategy, as of August 2023, B.C. performed 134,941 scheduled and unscheduled surgeries, which is 6,288 more than compared to the same time in 2019, and 642 more than 2022. In addition, all 24,488 surgeries postponed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have now been completed or scheduled.
Obviously people in need of surgical care want access to those procedures. But one can’t help but think of the strain on doctors, nurses and other health-care workers that would be required to achieve this goal. How many summer vacations were missed? Is workforce fatigue considered in this equation?
BC health says the province’s surgical-renewal commitment to patients is to “deliver surgeries that were postponed or not scheduled due to COVID-19, to deliver surgeries fastest to those who need them most, and to change the way surgeries are delivered in BC.”
Commitment to patients:
“Our Surgical Renewal Commitment clearly shows the resilience of our health-care workers and health-care system,” said Health Minister Adrian Dix in today’s news release.
“While facing numerous emergencies, we kept going and we achieved our goals,” said Dix.
“This progress report reflects the strength of our response. We’ve delivered on our commitment to patients to reschedule and complete all surgeries that had been postponed due to the pandemic and we’ve made great progress on transforming our surgical system. I am grateful to the surgical teams and health authorities for working together to deliver better surgeries and get more patients the surgeries they need faster.”
===== RELATED NEWS FROM THE PANDEMIC PERIOD:
- Continued push on surgical renewal in BC says Health Minister Adrian Dix (December 29, 2020)
- Surgical renewal not held back by COVID-19 (September 24, 2020)
- BC ramps up the surgical renewal during COVID (July 21, 2020)
- All BC nursing grads will be hired and surgeries to get caught up, says Dix (May 20, 2020)
Statistics:
In this summer of 2023, there were 4,661 more surgeries performed during the weeks of June 28 and August 27 than the same period pre-pandemic (in 2019).
According to BC Health, surgical-renewal achievements as of August 2023 include:
- delivered 12,934 urgent scheduled surgeries within four weeks, which is 237 more compared to the same time frame in 2019;
- delivered 10,601 non-urgent surgeries on patients waiting longer than two times their target wait – an 8% increase compared to the same time frame in 2019;
- operating rooms ran 234,870 hours, which is 13,702 more hours compared to the same time frame in 2019 and 1,726 more hours compared to the same time frame in 2022;
- hired more nurses, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and medical-device reprocessing staff to deliver those surgeries;
- from April 2020 to June 22, 2023, B.C. hired 219 surgeons, 137 anesthesiologists, 385 peri-operative nurses, seven general physician anesthetists, and 120 medical-device reprocessing technicians to deliver more surgeries;
- completed or booked surgeries by September 30, 2023, for all 24,488 patients who had surgeries that were postponed due to COVID-19 and who remained ready, willing and able to receive treatment on a planned date have received, or are scheduled to receive, surgery; and health authorities are accommodating a small number of patients who are yet to book their surgeries due to their own scheduling considerations and preferences.
Commitment of health-care providers:
Dix says the statistic “clearly demonstrate the commitment of health authorities and health-care providers” who he says “have worked together over the pandemic and other emergencies to improve access to surgeries for patients and strengthen our surgical and health-care system”.
Pandemic lessons:
Due to COVID-19, non-urgent scheduled surgeries were postponed on March 16, 2020, resuming on May 18, 2020. It turns out that may have been overkill. But there hadn’t been a pandemic to that extreme for 100 years, and the behaviour of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its pathology were yet uncertain or unknown. No vaccines were available at that time, and there was no expectation that vaccines could or would be available anytime soon.
Without listing any details, today the health ministry says “we have learned a lot from the past three years, and we will use these lessons learned to continue to focus on better supporting patients, surgical teams and the health-care system”.
“We will continue to monitor our progress and, together, we will get more patients surgeries faster and better deliver surgeries to people in BC.”
===== GOVERNMENT LINKS:
- 20th Quarterly Progress Surgical Report: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/SurgicalRenewalProgressReport_April-Aug2023-24.pd (https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/SurgicalRenewalProgressReport_April-Aug2023-24.pdf)f
- A Commitment to Surgical Renewal in B.C.: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2020HLTH0026-000830
- Comparison between completed surgeries from June 25 to Aug. 27 in 2023 and 2019: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/Backgrounder_Surgeries_JunetoAug2023.pdf