Columbus area hospitals delay elective surgeries with COVID on the rise again

Max Filby, The Columbus Dispatch
·2 min read
ICU nurse Trudy Halstead walks through the hallway exhausted after a 12-hour shift inside Mount Carmel Grove City Hospital's COVID-19 ward in December 2020. The filled-to-capacity ward houses the sickest COVID patients, many of whom are already intubated or at high risk of needing to be intubated.
ICU nurse Trudy Halstead walks through the hallway exhausted after a 12-hour shift inside Mount Carmel Grove City Hospital's COVID-19 ward in December 2020. The filled-to-capacity ward houses the sickest COVID patients, many of whom are already intubated or at high risk of needing to be intubated.

Columbus area hospitals are again delaying elective procedures as COVID cases and hospitalizations surge across Ohio.

As of Monday, 4,795 Ohioans were hospitalized with the virus, including 1,209 in Ohio's intensive care units, according to the Ohio Hospital Association. That number is slightly down from last week, but otherwise at its highest level since December 2020, data shows.

>>Read More: Ohio facing 'very serious situation' as COVID cases skyrocket, state's top doctor says

Beginning Jan. 3, Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center will postpone certain procedures, the hospital announced Friday. No one scheduled to have a surgery before then will be affected and patients will be individually notified of the change.

Procedures deemed necessary due to a life-threatening condition, permanent dysfunction, progression of cancer or risk of rapidly worsening pain will still take place, according to the medical center.

The decision to delay surgeries was made "to maintain safety and high quality of care" for patients.

"This measure will help free the necessary resources for inpatients in need of immediate and life-saving care whether from COVID-19 or other serious illnesses," an Ohio State media release reads.

Like Ohio State, OhioHealth is postponing procedures "due to the upward trend in COVID-19 hospitalizations," an OhioHealth spokesman said in a prepared statement.

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To free up hospital capacity, some but not all OhioHealth hospitals have temporarily paused elective procedures that require an overnight stay. OhioHealth has used the same strategy in the past two years to deal with an influx of COVID patients from time to time.

"Due to the fluid nature of this most-recent surge, we will continually monitor capacity and pause or resume elective surgeries with an overnight stay as needed," the health system said in a prepared statement.

Mount Carmel Health is reviewing all elective surgeries and procedures on a daily basis and has already begun to pause some elective procedures that require an overnight stay, according to a prepared statement. The health system will continue to assess its operations as the latest COVID-19 surge evolves to ensure safe, high-quality care, the statement reads.

Nationwide Children's Hospital does not have plans to postpone any procedures at this time due to COVID, spokeswoman Gina Bericchia said via email. Since kids are the primary patients at Nationwide Children's, most surgeries there are medically necessary and not elective, Bericchia said.

mfilby@dispatch.com

@MaxFilby

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: COVID spike forcing Columbus hospitals to again delay some surgeries