Hospitals will operate in the evenings and weekends to get rid of waiting lists. They also try to plan the same interventions in succession as much as possible to save time. “This way we can help 1 to 2 extra patients per day.”
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Many hospitals do not start to catch up on care until after the summer holidays. Figures from the Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa) show that there were an estimated 320,000 fewer operations between March 2020 and May 2021. But most hospitals say they first give their staff a rest before they start clearing the backlog, according to a tour.
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However, plans are ready to accelerate from September. Waiting lists have arisen in particular for orthopedics, ENT, gynaecology, urology and plastic surgery. Because this care can be planned, it was the first to disappear from the surgery schedule.
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The Noordwest Hospital Group in Alkmaar will call all 3,500 patients who are waiting for surgery this summer to hear how they are doing. “Our specialists then determine the urgency,” said spokesman Marieke de Vries. The worst off patients can count on a place first.
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Additional works
Various hospitals are investigating which staff wants to work extra in order to be able to operate in the evenings and weekends. “To start with, we will use six operating rooms on Saturdays for catch-up care and we are investigating whether this can be expanded,” says Eveline Henneke, spokesperson for the Isala in Zwolle.
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In the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, some operating rooms are already used in the evenings. “That means that staff have to work extra, but people are willing to do that. It’s extra work with a purpose. That makes it different from covid, where it was unclear how high the peak would be and how long the extra effort was needed,” says Johanneke Mulder, director ok.
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In order to be able to help as many patients as possible quickly, hospitals are also looking at more efficient use of operating rooms. “By doing many of the same operations in one day, such as gallbladder or inguinal hernia operations, you don’t have to adjust the operating room every time and you can switch patients more quickly. As a result, you can operate 1 or 2 extra patients in a day,” explains Ellen de Jong, spokesperson for the Nij Smellinghe hospital in Drachten. This hospital also deploys additional support staff to enable faster operation changes. They help, for example, with cleaning up the operating rooms and preparing the right equipment.
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Read the poignant story of 24-year-old Ken below the photo. He would get a new liver exactly on the day that the ICs bulged out of corona patients. His sister Bo (26) would donate some of hers to him. Due to the corona hectic, the transplant was canceled at the last minute. “That was very exciting, because my metastases were really not allowed to grow any further.”
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