Lions Gate Hospital has caught up 87% of COVID-cancelled surgeries

Lions Gate Hospital has caught up with almost 90 per cent of surgeries that were cancelled over two months this spring during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

About 87 per cent of surgeries postponed at Lions Gate to free up hospital beds in the first two months of the pandemic have now been completed, according to Vancouver Coastal Health.

The catch-up puts the North Shore hospital on track with the rest of the province. Approximately 90 per cent of postponed surgeries in B.C. as a whole and 88 per cent of surgeries in VCH have been caught up since elective surgeries resumed in May.

Urgent and emergency surgeries continued at local hospitals this spring, even when other surgeries were postponed.

When scheduled surgeries resumed in May, hospitals focused first on patients needing surgery the quickest first, including cancer patients.

Surgical waitlists in B.C. peaked at over 100,000 patients May 28, but have been cut 12 per cent since then, according to the province.

One of the ways Lions Gate Hospital caught up on cancelled surgeries was to drastically reduce summer operating room closures.

That resulted in 35 per cent more surgeries being done at the North Shore hospital between May and August 2020 than in the same time period in 2019.

Over a 13-week period between the end of May and the end of August, there were 2,013 surgeries (including over 500 emergency surgeries) completed at Lions Gate – over 150 per week.

Those surgeries included cancer patients, neurosurgery, orthopedic and general surgeries.