Surgeries at Oshawa and Ajax hospitals are back on the table; some services still reduced
Published July 28, 2021 at 6:45 pm
Elective surgeries are back on the table at Lakeridge Health hospitals in Durham following long delays due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Lakeridge Health resumed elective surgeries and other non-urgent and non-emergency services June 29, following provincial directives.
Those services include Diagnostic Imaging, Mental Health programs and Durham Regional Cancer Centre procedures. Lakeridge Health clinics and Pinewood Centre are also back in business, albeit with some Covid-19-related restrictions.
To help healthcare organizations like Lakeridge Health get back on schedule, the Province is investing $324 million on a surgical recovery plan.
The money will help increase the number of surgeries, procedures, and diagnostic imaging appointments hospitals and community health systems can provide.
The funding – $216 million of it will go to building extra operating rooms – will allow hospitals to operate at 110 to 115 per cent capacity to help with the backlog.
Videos
At Pinewood, new clients are being admitted into all outpatient services but Outpatient Mental Health and Child Youth and Family Program services still being provided virtually through the telephone and Microsoft Teams.
The Rapid Access Addiction Medicine is open, by appointment, and the Residential Withdrawal Management Service is open for admissions.
Both the Multi Care Kidney Clinic and Home Hemodialysis and Home Peritoneal Dialysis Clinics are still reduced to only urgent on-site visits. All other visits are done by telephone consultation or virtually. On-site training for both Home Hemodialysis and Home Peritoneal Dialysis remain open.
For General Nephrologists Clinics, urgent onsite visits are available as required and patients will continue to have follow-up telephone or virtual appointment consults with their Nephrologist.
Women’s & Children Clinics services are fully resumed, except for the Paediatric Cardiology Clinic, which is still ‘paused.’
For Cardiac Diagnostics, the Holter Monitoring & Stress testing is working on reduced services (limited to high priority testing) and Metabolic Testing for Cardiac Rehab is still postponed.
As well, the Pacemaker Clinic at Ajax-Pickering Hospital is temporarily operating out of Oshawa Hospital.
Onsite visits as required are back at the Diabetes Education Program and the Centre for Complex Diabetes Care, while the Stroke Prevention Clinic and Stroke Follow-Up Clinic are open with reduced services.
At both clinics, referrals are triaged and scheduled according to urgency.
The Geriatric Assessment and Intervention Network Clinic and Respiratory Rehabilitation Clinics are open with reduced services.
The Lakeridge Health Whitby Hand Clinic, as well as the Outpatient Physiotherapy Clinics at Rossland Road and Lakeridge Health Ajax, are all open with reduced services for post-op surgeries and fractures.
Lakeridge Health Whitby Neurological Rehabilitation Clinic is open with reduced services and the Clinical Genetics Clinic is open and continuing to provide care. All incoming referrals are being triaged – only priority patients are being given appointments.
The Durham Regional Cancer Centre is open and continuing to provide cancer care and treatments, but some appointments may be rescheduled.
Lakeridge Health is continuing to restrict visitors in the hospital. This includes your family members/partners-in-care.
Talk to a member of your healthcare team if you have questions about this.
insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising