SickKids increasing surgical activity

Over the past few weeks, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) has seen its patient census stabilize and return to levels typically seen at this time of year. As a result, starting Monday, January 16, SickKids will begin cautiously increasing capacity for scheduled surgical procedures. SickKids previously had to reduce surgical activity to preserve critical care capacity due to high volumes of patients with respiratory illnesses.  

“These have been some of the most challenging months SickKids has ever seen. The extraordinary collaboration within the hospital and vital support of our partners across the system have allowed us to maintain emergent, urgent and highly time-sensitive surgical services for our patients,” says Dr. Simon Kelley, Associate Chief of Perioperative Services, Clinical and Ambulatory at SickKids. “Despite resource constraints and changes to surgical operations, we are proud to have completed over 11,200 surgeries in 2022 – more than 92 per cent of our pre-pandemic volumes.”   

As surgical activity increases, SickKids teams continue to work through a significant surgical backlog of more than 6,000 patients. Families who are waiting for a surgery date will be contacted in the coming months as their procedures are able to be booked.