The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) will be ramping down its surgery schedule to start the new year.
Hospital officials said in a release Friday afternoon the move is "in accordance with a new Ontario directive to Ontario hospitals" and will help to preserve critical care and human resource capacity regionally and provincially amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
As a result, the hospital's Operating Room will maintain its reduced holiday schedule into January with a focus on urgent and emergent surgeries, including cancer surgeries.
The CKHA is assuring patients that anyone who may be affected by cancellations of surgical procedures will be notified by their surgeon, adding that they should not call the hospital regarding their procedures.
"We will continuously monitor this ramp down measure with great care and consideration," said the CKHA's chief of staff Dr. Pervez Faruqi. "We do not have a timeline for this temporary change, and we will assess on an ongoing basis when to resume back to normal operations."