(Spirit Lake)– One area hospital says it’s still going to hold off on once again offering elective surgeries, even though Governor Kim Reynolds announced today (Fri.) it will be okay for them to do that starting next week.
Lakes Regional Healthcare President and CEO Jason Harrington tells KUOO news they will NOT begin providing those procedures Monday. He says they want to closely consider several factors first…
“Certainly our patient safety, the safety of our physicians and staff and the safety of the communities are the number one priority, so we’re going to be very measured about how we roll back elective surgeries. And you plan to get that feedback next week then? Yeah. So our intention would be to get that feedback probably Tuesday, Wednesday of next week and then develop a plan in terms of when we want to do our first elective surgery. And I suppose that there’s an outside chance, Steve, that the medical staff might say, you know, we think we might want to wait a little bit longer, because of a variety of circumstances. I don’t see that, but, you know, we certainly want to get their feedback and leadership on this.”
Harrington says personal protective equipment will also come into play in the decision…
“Preservation of that in the event of a COVID surge is really important, again back to my comment about the safety of our community and our staff and patients. So we have to be very cognizant of that. So there are some surgery types that would require a lot of personal protective equipment and as a result of that, you know, you have to make the call locally to say, you know, do we feel like we have enough, then, to respond to a surge of COVID-19. So a very good question and one of the things we’ll have to consider.”
Harrington says they’ll also taken into consideration guidance from the Iowa Medical Society and Iowa Hospital Association.
