BUFFALO, N.Y. — As the COVID-19 strain on some local hospitals starts to ease, waivers are being granted by the state to allow those facilities to resume certain elective procedures.
Oishei Children's and Millard Suburban, part of Kaleida Health, are the latest hospitals to get the OK from New York State.
Brooks-TLC in Dunkirk also announced on Friday that it has started once again to perform procedures such as colonoscopies and eye surgeries that do not typically require hospitalization.
The Dunkirk hospital, which treated seven cases of the COVID-19 virus, was given the OK after meeting the New York State Department of Health guidelines.
Kaleida says waivers for Buffalo General, the Southtowns Ambulatory Surgery Center, and the Millard Fillmore Surgery Center remain under review by the state.
“For more than six weeks now our physicians, nurses and staff have worked extremely hard battling COVID-19. They have been relentless in providing the very best care for all of our patients. For them to hear news like this and see a hint of normalcy in the coming days and weeks validates all of their efforts. I could not be happier for them and the patients that we serve," said Jody Lomeo, Kaleida Health's president and CEO.
Non-emergency surgical and elective procedures were suspended in March to allow hospitals to devote all of their resources to the COVID-19 outbreak.
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