Doctors are again putting in new knees and hips and handling hundreds of elective surgeries in Bloomington-Normal as medical facilitieshave eased restrictionsover concerns about COVID-19 surge capacity.
Elective procedures resumed in Illinois on May 11, as part of Gov. JB Pritzker's Restore Illinois plan.
Trayce Bartley, director of perioperative services at Carle BroMenn and Carle Eureka medical centers, said the hospitals have made up more than 500 medical operations in recent weeks, but there are still a few holdouts.
“Some patients are putting it off because there are concerns,” Bartley said. “’Do I want to go to the hospital, maybe that’s where sick people are? But most days we don’t even have a COVID inpatient.”
Bartley said the hospitals are back to normal now and taking care of the backlog of surgeries. He said they did not allow any elective surgeries during the early stages of the pandemic.
“It was a disappointing call to make to patients, but it was the right thing to do,” Bartley said.
Dr. Bill Novak is lead physician at the OSF HealthCare Cardiovascular Institute in Bloomington. He agreed most patients didn’t want to come in due to fears of coronavirus infection.
He said OSF wanted to ensure that concerns about bed capacity didn’t prevent those who felt their medical procedures were more urgent from getting the operation scheduled.
“Those concerns are valid,” Novak said. “I think a lot of times it was because patients were fearful to come to the hospital, or come to their routine doctor visits.”
Novak said in late March nearly three-fourths of patients requested a delay, but the institute now is running at “90% of normal operations.”
He said OSF relied heavily on virtual consultations with patients when possible, adding that nearly all patients have resumed in-house appointments.
Novak said most patients seem to feel that phone or video visits can only go so far.
“I think it still helps to see patients in the office in person,” Novak said. “I don’t think the in-person visit is ever going to be replaced by technology.”
Bartley and Novak both said their facilities continue to maintain coronavirus protocols for the safety of patients and staff, and they stayed opened without reducing staff.
Bartley said some of his staff was redeployed to assist with COVID-19 health screenings when surgeries were less frequent.
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