Starting in the fall, certain spine, knee, and eye day surgeries will be performed at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Grimsby, freeing up space at Hamilton General Hospital and McMaster Children’s Hospital. Photo credit: Pexels/Anna Shvets
A recent analysis by the Ontario Medical Association revealed that the current healthcare backlog created by the COVID-19 pandemic has grown to almost 22 million services, with patients across the province experiencing significant delays for everything from diagnostic tests to day surgeries.
At Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) there are currently 1,396 children and 6,053 adults waiting for surgery alone.
In an effort to address the issue, HHS is using $450,000 received from the Ontario government’s expanded $86.2 million Surgical Innovation Fund to reallocate resources and personnel away from perennially busy Hamilton General Hospital (HGH) and McMaster Children’s Hospital (MCH).
Beginning in the fall, certain spine, knee, and eye day surgeries will be performed at West Lincoln Memorial Hospital (WLMH) in Grimsby.
Adults with strabismus, commonly known as crossed eyes, are currently treated by pediatric ophthalmologists at MCH. Moving these adult patients to WLMH will help tackle delays for children by freeing up more operating room time for pediatric patients at MCH.
Wait times will also be shortened for some uncomplicated spinal day surgeries and orthopedic procedures such as knee arthroscopy, used for diagnosing and treating a range of knee injuries. Day procedure spine cases are currently performed at HGH, and arthroscopy procedures are currently performed at HGH and McMaster.
“By moving spinal day surgeries to West Lincoln, we’re making additional room for more complex spinal surgeries at the HGH,” said WLMH’s site chief of surgery Dr. Ved Tandan in a media release.
Under the new system, surgeons will travel to Grimsby from the two Hamilton sites to perform procedures.
HHS estimates the new approach will support approximately 75 spine procedures per year, as well as 75 orthopedic scope procedures and about 60 eye-muscle surgeries.
To accommodate the influx of patients, 10 hours of operating time per week are being added to WLMH by lengthening the workday in one of the hospital’s ORs.
“Normally there are seven hours of operating time in a day,” explained Tandan. “But one of the West Lincoln ORs will now be open nine hours per day, five days a week, which is providing the extra 10 hours per week of OR time.”
According to HHS, new equipment is already starting to arrive at WLMH. Training and education to prepare staff will take place over the summer.
The province’s $86.2 million Surgical Innovation Fund is supporting 187 projects and hospitals province-wide, with the goal of helping them perform more surgeries and procedures as they continue to ramp up non-urgent and non-emergent surgeries.
