B.C.'s Interior Health to restart surgeries

KELOWNA, B.C. - British Columbia's Interior Health authority says it's taking a phased approach to resuming services that were paused last month, including rescheduling postponed surgeries and reopening in-patient services in several communities.

A statement from president Susan Brown says the impacts of the Omicron wave of COVID-19 on staffing in the region's health-care system are beginning to subside.

Brown says staffing isn't stable enough to safely restore all services next week, but it will reschedule procedures starting Wednesday and aims to clear the backlog as quickly as possible.

The announcement from Interior Health comes as the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in B.C. continues to decline, at 733 on Friday from 744 the previous day.

Five more people have died, for a total of 2,786 COVID-19 related fatalities.

A statement from the Health Ministry says the province is also preparing to distribute COVID-19 rapid tests to the public, starting with seniors, and officials are expected to outline details of the plan during a news conference next week.

Interior Health says in-patient services will reopen Feb. 23 in Clearwater, where one new registered nurse has been recruited, while nurse-provided primary care services will return to normal that day at the Barriere and District Health Centre.

In-patient services are also set to reopen March 14 in Lillooet with two new nurses.

The health authority says overnight services at the Ashcroft Community Health Centre and the Slocan Community Health Centre in New Denver remain temporarily reduced to stabilize daytime services in those communities.

Health Minister Adrian Dix told a news conference this week that the proportion of health-care workers calling in sick was higher in the Interior Health region, which accounted for about two-thirds of all the non-urgent cancelled surgeries in B.C.

"But most everywhere else, we're going to be aggressively moving to rebook surgeries in the coming weeks because people need their surgeries," Dix said.

"And even if we describe these as non-urgent scheduled surgeries, they're all important, they're all necessary."