NYC public hospitals postpone elective surgeries to prep for COVID surge

People seeking COVID-19 tests lined up for hours outside Elmhurst Hospital in March, while inside the facility filled with critically ill patients. The city has cancelled elective surgeries at its municipal hospitals to prepare for another surge in patients. AP Photo/John Minchillo

By David Brand

New York City’s municipal hospital system has suspended elective surgeries to make room for an expected increase in new COVID-19 patients, said Health and Hospitals Commissioner Mitchell Katz Thursday.

Katz said hospital staff will only perform emergency surgeries, like those related to car accidents, or “surgeries where somebody's health is directly affected,” such as an infected gallbladder.

“So, we're doing the necessary surgeries and the emergency surgeries, but we have — consistent with the governor's request — we have canceled elective procedures and we do have the extra 25 percent capacity the state has asked us for,” he said.

Katz cited a directive from Gov. Andrew Cuomo instructing hospitals to free up space as COVID rates rise statewide.

He also said the city will move patients among hospitals to ensure no facility is overrun with critically ill patients, as happened at Elmhurst Hospital in March and April. Katz referred to the process as “level-loading.”

“What you want to do is to move patients from the hospital that is full to your other hospitals,” he said. “It's not an easy procedure, especially if people are sick, it's not simple to move someone, especially if they're in respiratory distress.”

The process was extremely difficult in the spring when ICUs were full of critically ill patients, he said.

“Now it's easier because the patients that we're seeing are not as sick in general as they were in March and April, and we're moving them earlier in the process,” he continued.

News of the decision to suspend elective surgeries comes a day after the first Health and Hospitals staff members received COVID vaccines. The first two shots took place at Elmhurst Hospital, once the epicenter of the international COVID crisis. 

Public and private hospitals have once again begun admitting a growing number of COVID patients.

Just over 20 percent of Intensive Care Unit beds at Queens hospitals were occupied by COVID-19 patients between Dec. 4 and 10, according to federal Health and Human Services data analyzed by the University of Minnesota. Just over 10 percent of all beds in Queens facilities were used for COVID patients, the data shows.

At the peak of the pandemic in late-March, Elmhurst Hospital was at 125-percent capacity, while doctors and staff at Jamaica Hospital estimated that 80 percent of the facility was devoted to COVID patients.