After a month and half of cancellations due to the influx of COVID-19 patients, Campbell County Health (CCH) will resume elective surgeries beginning Monday, Nov. 15.
Hospital officials have been meeting on a weekly basis to decide when there would be enough beds and staff to resume elective surgeries. After running out of space, CCH once again has room for surgeons to proceed with some of those elective surgeries.
The hospital is resuming only outpatient elective surgeries this week. Communications Director Karen Clarke said it is important to stress that it is not all elective surgeries.
“It’s very important to note that we are resuming outpatient elective surgeries only at this time,” she said after meeting with CCH officials Wednesday. “Outpatient only. We do not know when inpatient elective surgeries will resume.”
CCH cancelled all elective inpatient surgeries more than a month ago on Sept. 27. Then, it also cancelled all elective outpatient surgeries as well beginning Oct. 25.
The hospital at its peak had as many as 25 COVID-19 patients just two weeks ago. When Clarke announced late last week that outpatient surgeries are resuming, CCH had nine COVID-19 going into the weekend.
Clarke said the hospital will continue to monitor the situation and that changes in elective surgeries could change again in the future if or when there is another influx of coronavirus patients. CCH must ensure there are open beds for inpatient emergency situations.
The Wyoming Department of Health provides COVID-19 case, variant, death, testing, hospital and vaccine data online. The department also shares information about how the data can be interpreted. COVID-19 safety recommendations are available from the CDC.
