Catholic Health announced Monday it is back to operating a full caseload of elective surgeries. Up until now, it was working on a limited schedule after being the first hospital system in Erie County to get a waiver from New York State.
Elective procedures were suspended in March so hospitals could focus all of their resources on the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to qualify for the waiver, Catholic Health needed to institute new practices going forward, including testing each patient for the virus prior to surgery.
Shortly after the pandemic took hold in WNY, Catholic Health established the area's only treatment facility exclusively for COVID-19 patients at the Sisters of Charity St. Joseph Hospital campus in Cheektowaga.
“In addition to the new processes we put into place, our COVID Continuum at St. Joseph Campus and the St. Joseph Post-Acute Center is enabling us to provide a safer care environment for our elective surgery patients,” said Mark Sullivan, President & CEO of Catholic Health. “With the support of our surgeons and our surgical care team throughout Catholic Health, we are providing the highest quality surgical care, while reducing the backlog of elective surgery cases as quickly as possible.”
