Health Authority Reintroducing Suspended Services
The Nova Scotia Health Authority has begun the process of reintroducing a number of services and patient procedures that were halted due to the province’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Services such as outpatient clinics, diagnostic imaging, lab services, and day surgery were set aside to allow space and personnel to handle the COVID-19 crisis.
Dr. Brendan Carr, president and CEO of the NSHA says, “We avoided significant disaster as a province, collectively suppressing this virus.”
He said calls have begun to reschedule procedures based on the most pressing cases.
Carr says, “Resuming services is going to take some time as we assess and prioritize patients whose procedures were cancelled. This needs to be done gradually and cautiously.”
He added that telephone and virtual care, introduced with social distancing, will become an ongoing part of Nova Scotian health services.
Key areas where services will resume include:
- Ambulatory (outpatient) clinics
- Various outpatient clinics will resume, continue to see patients virtually with in-person appointments as required, and/or increase the number of patient visits. The types of clinics that will resume will vary at locations across the province. Examples of these clinics include: wound care, ECG, renal, medical specialty, orthopaedic assessment.
- Diagnostic imaging
- Increase in the number of procedures including CT, MRI and ultrasound at departments across the province.
- Laboratory
- Increase the number of appointments as blood collection will continue by appointment only (there are some sites in Northern Zone where walk-in service is currently available.)
- Surgery
- Initial focus on completing day surgeries and outpatient; procedures such as cataract surgeries and endoscopy procedures; continue to do urgent/emergent; and, cancer surgical cases.
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