In an effort to free up medical staff for the latest surge of Covid patients infected by the Omicron variant, hospitals across Massachusetts have been asked by the state to indefinitely postpone non-essential medical appointments starting on Monday. Southcoast Health, the dominant hospital network on the South Coast, has already canceled or postponed most scheduled appointments through early January.
The pause on non-emergency procedures was ordered by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker last week, along with the deployment of up to 500 National Guard members to assist hospitals and ambulance companies. Twenty-five are headed to Southcoast Health’s hospitals in New Bedford, Fall River and Wareham to transport patients and provide security.
Dr. Dani Hackner, Southcoast Health’s physician-in-chief, said his organization implemented its own pause on non-emergency procedures several days before the governor’s orders.
But defining what exactly qualifies as a non-essential procedure is a task the governor has left to hospitals.
“What we do is make sure that the leaders of our care centers weigh in on any procedures that are considered urgent or emergent that need to be done, and any procedures that are on the fence where we need additional input,” Hackner said. “The involvement of leadership is very important, and it helps the frontline providers who are making initial determinations, and allows us to make sure that multiple eyes take a look at difficult cases.”
Just because a medical procedure is elective does not mean it’s not necessary. In past COVID-induced pauses, hospitals have delayed cancer surgeries, organ transplants and other potentially life saving surgeries.
When asked whether Southcoast Health delayed these kinds of procedures, a spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
But Hackner said he shares concerns that critics have raised about the danger of delaying procedures.
“It may not be urgent now, but it could be urgent later if we leave it too long,” he said. “We don’t want to pause any longer than we need to on elective, non-urgent or non-emergent surgeries, and that’s why we evaluate every day.”
Hackner said patients whose appointments were canceled have been notified and can discuss any concerns with their providers.
A spokesperson for Southcoast Health said the pause is scheduled to last until at least January 3. It marks the second time during the coronavirus pandemic that the region’s hospitals have effectively had to close their doors to most health procedures because of a surge in Covid cases.
The last pause, which lasted about two months and coincided with the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, created a backlog of appointments that took some departments at Southcoast Health close to a year to clear, Hackner said. At the time the governor ordered the first pause, hospitals across the state were scrambling to find enough beds in their facilities for Covid patients.
Since then, Southcoast Health has opened an additional intensive care unit at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and developed “surge space” at other facilities, including Tobey Hospital in Wareham and Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River.
However, the staffing shortages that contributed to the first pause have only worsened in the months since. Hackner said the shortage is particularly acute among nurses, who have been struggling to negotiate a union contract with the hospital’s management for over three years.
The pause in elective procedures will also affect the financial health of the region’s hospitals.
“There’s no doubt, we’re taking a very big financial hit by pausing revenue generating procedures,” Hackner said.
Still, for the time being, Southcoast Health’s executives and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents nurses at St. Luke’s Hospital and Tobey Hospital, both consider the governor’s pause on non-emergency procedures necessary.
“They are costs that we have to bear in order to sustain safe patient care, in order to sustain our workforces, and in order to serve the community in a focused way,” Hackner said.
Has your elective procedure been postponed? Email South Coast Bureau Reporter Ben Berke at bberke@thepublicsradio.org and tell him about it. You can follow him on Twitter @BenBerke6.
