Brian Durniok
UPMC Chautauqua in Jamestown and Brooks Memorial Hospital in Dunkirk are among over 30 hospitals in New York State required to restrict elective surgeries and procedures starting this Friday.
The increase in COVID-19 cases is causing the strain on hospital facilities.
UPMC Chautauqua President Brian Durniok said under the executive order signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, if 90% of staffed beds are full then facilities are asked to limit elective procedures and surgeries for a two-week time period, “And then they reassess it each week to look at what our occupancy is. And then when that occupancy would drop below 90% then those non-essential elective surgeries would be restored. And so that’s what the process is that we’re operating under.”
Durniok said surgeries for cancer, heart issues, gall bladder removal, and the like will still continue, “An example of something that would be paused, for instance, might be an elective joint replacement. If a patient had decided, been thinking the last couple of years, about having their knee replaced and they’ve been able to manage. And they’ve been managing the last couple of years, that would be the type of thing that could be potentially deferred for two weeks.”
Durniok said the increase in COVID patients is a challenge because they tend to have a longer length of hospital stay than an average patient, “We’re also seeing some challenges where some of the local nursing homes also have some resource issues so our ability to, in some cases, discharge patients back to them as quickly as we want is also contributing to some of the occupancy capacity issues that we’re dealing with.”
Durniok encouraged people to get their COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters and to keep doing the things that worked in the early days of the Pandemic such as wearing a mask, social distancing, and washing your hands.
Do you know if UPMC Chautauqua is now allowing elective surgeries? I could only find 12/8/21 article about ceasing those surgeries