CRH soon to resume elective surgeries - Fray

WESTERN BUREAU:

With the number of in-house COVID-19 patients at the Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) now down to 18, the Western Regional Health Authority’s (WRHA) clinical coordinator, Dr Delroy Fray, says that plans can proceed to gradually resume elective surgeries at the Mt Salem, St James-based hospital.

“This morning, April 29, is very pleasant for us as we have only 18 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, and our total patient admission overall is 290 patients, whereas our capacity here is for 342 patients. This is giving me the green light that I can reintroduce some of our elective work and move toward getting the hospital back to some level of normal operation,” Fray told The Gleaner on Thursday.

“We have had discussions with the surgeons, the nursing staff and the anaesthetist, and we are trying to see if the COVID-19 numbers keep down where we can get back to normal operating levels with what we have available to work with,” Fray added.

The current number of COVID-19 patients at the CRH, which is the only Type-A hospital in western Jamaica, has been a significant reduction from the 22 patients who were confirmed to have the virus up to last Friday. It also provides a reprieve for hospital staff who, up to last month, had to treat an average of 65 COVID-19 patients per day.

MORE PROCEDURES

Fray said that with the CRH now having gotten that relief, the facility will now be in a better position to focus on gynaecological treatments, eye surgeries, and other non-emergency cases on a phased basis. However, he said it would be premature to announce a date for when those procedures will be made available to patients.

“We are looking at our list, and I can tell you that those procedures for gynaecological operations, eye operations, and some aspects of general surgery like hernias and cholecystectomy [a procedure to remove the gall bladder] are the ones we want to reintroduce. But I want the public to understand that we are going to do it on a phased basis, and they should be patient with us,” said Fray.

“It would be too early to say when we want to start these procedures. In another month we could look at what we have achieved and see how we can proceed from there, and if the COVID-19 numbers stay down, I do not see a problem in getting this done,” Fray continued.

COVID CASES

As at Wednesday, St James had recorded 4,336 COVID-19 cases out of Jamaica’s overall tally of 45,414 confirmed cases. This means that St James is still the parish with the highest number of COVID-19 cases under the WRHA’s jurisdiction, ahead of Westmoreland’s 1,882 cases, Trelawny’s 1,573 cases, and Hanover’s 1,211 cases.

St James also continues to be the parish with the third highest number of COVID-19 cases overall, after Kingston and St Andrew’s 12,957 cases and St Catherine’s 8,936 cases.