ELECTIVE surgeries will be "gradually and cautiously" reintroduced to Hunter hospitals as COVID-19 case numbers remain stable in the region.
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Hunter New England Health suspended non-urgent elective surgeries in late March in line with the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But operating lists are now being reviewed as the health service looks at increasing the availability of non-urgent elective surgeries as cases of COVID-19 stabilise.
Dr Paul Craven said they would initially look at performing surgeries for one-in-four patients who had been on earlier operating lists.
"But we have to be sure we do this carefully," the medical controller for Hunter New England's response to COVID-19 said.
"People have still been having operations. All the way through this process we have been continuing to provide urgent surgeries - category one surgeries, and some urgent category two surgeries.
"We have gone back to doing some non-urgent category two and some category three operations as well."
Dr Craven said the "staged reintroduction" of surgical services would include procedures for children with urgent conditions or longer wait times, some endoscopic procedures, cancer screening programs, and some critical dental procedures.
"We do understand that having an operation cancelled is extremely distressing - but we are going to work with every one of those patients to ensure their operation is rescheduled in time," Dr Craven said. "We want to make sure we get the right patients getting operations, and we want to make sure we don't fill the hospital immediately with patients, because if we have an outbreak of COVID, we wouldn't have as much space.
"We also don't want to admit a patient who might get sick in hospital as well.
"So we are trying to be really staged in our approach.
"All operating lists are being reviewed, and we'll probably bring back about one-in-four from the operating lists that we had previously."
Dr Craven said COVID-19 had changed the way Hunter hospitals delivered outpatient services, and some of these changes were worth keeping.
"There are things, like some telehealth services, that have been really good for patients," he said. "Particularly for those who, before the changes, would have had to come to the hospital for a 15 minute appointment, or had to travel a long distance.
"We are looking at plans for outpatients. Some clinics will come back to face-to-face, and we have to work out how to do that while socially distancing. But we recognise telehealth as an extremely good model of care for patients. COVID-19 came along and gave us lots of opportunities in that respect."
Hospital visiting restrictions would remain in place.
"We appreciate what the public have done - everyone has been extremely responsible. We understand people have had operations and appointments cancelled, and we appreciate their complete understanding and working with us on this journey."
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