By Staff
April 9th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
Joseph Brant Hospital is ramping down and postponing all non-urgent pre-scheduled surgeries and procedures effective Monday, April 12 in response to significant pressure on critical care bed capacity across the province. This decision follows the direction of Ontario Health.
Patients who have a scheduled procedure are being contacted directly by their care provider to confirm the status of their procedure, and are asked not to call the hospital. JBH is prioritizing cases based on the hospital’s patient-centered philosophy and ethical framework to ensure that non-deferrable, urgent activity is still completed and that the effects on patient outcomes are minimized.
Eric Vandewall, President and CEO of Joseph Brant Hospital.
“Creating this additional inpatient capacity will help address the immediate needs of Ontario’s healthcare system at this critical time. We understand the impact that this will have on our patients and their families, as well as on our staff and physicians,” says Eric Vandewall, President and CEO of Joseph Brant Hospital.
“We will be continuously monitoring this rapidly evolving situation and will resume the scheduling of surgery and other procedures as soon as safely possible and in alignment with Ontario Health. I would like to thank our community for their continued understanding and cooperation.”
There are no other changes to current services at JBH at this time. JBH will continue to leverage virtual care technology for appointments, while providing on-site services based on need. The Halton Region Vaccination Clinic continues to provide COVID-19 immunization to eligible adults and the COVID-19 Assessment Centre is providing ongoing testing – both services by appointment only.
The hospital is also safe to provide emergency medical care and to allow access to essential care partners (ECPs) who are supporting patients under exceptional circumstances (one ECP permitted per visit). JBH adheres to the strictest infection prevention and control (IPAC) procedures, including entrance screening, environmental cleaning, PPE protocols as well as thorough disinfection and sterilization of medical equipment.
I saw Premier Ford on TV news tonight saying that given that things have been worse in other places, that Ontario is not doing so bad. Now that’s leadership explaining things.
He was caught by a camera in a hall way somewhere and that is all that was ran on the news.
Appears there is no problem in shutting down the health care system in Ontario cause he says it’s worse elsewhere.
The fact he ignored expert forecasts of the spiking surge we are in – he said he wasn’t told – and waited weeks too long to seriously slow things down while trying to speed things up instead, doesn’t appear for him to be the single real relevant fact in this politicized policy boondoggle that will have blood on it.
Covid-19 delivers people to the hospital more and more every day with urgent or intensive care needs or ventilation, or even heart-lung treatment, with some dying every day, and continued this will crush the health care system ability to handle any other health issue, whether we choose this as more important or not.
And how many deaths will these delays in surgeries cause. Not to mention the pain a person might have to endure longer because of the cancellation. Just because a surgery is not for an immediate life-threatening reason does not negate it’s need to be performed in a timely manner. Why is Covid-19 considered more important than any other health issue?
There is so much wrong in what you wrote, I don’t know where to begin.
You did read it was planned elective, non-urgent surgeries……….correct???