The waiting game is getting very painful
POSTPONED operations at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital are becoming almost as much of a rolling news story as the issues which tend to cause it – often staff shortages and now, once again, Covid.
A raft of cancellations announced again yesterday, leaving hundreds of islanders still awaiting operations, many of them in daily pain, wondering when, and if, things may take a turn for the better.
It is clear that, with Covid-linked deaths occurring in hospital once again, the health authorities will continue to consider the virus its priority. As a result, any efforts to make a significant dent in a waiting list of 1,800 – the last known figure we have, which was made public back in October – are going to have to wait.
The impact of needing a Covid-specific space in the hospital, ongoing recruitment and retention issues with nurses, and beds being taken up by elderly people who have nowhere else to go because care homes are full and care in the community is overwhelmed, is a real challenge.
And the waiting list for operations – almost half of which is orthopaedic surgery – has doubled since the pandemic started in March 2020.
HSC had spoken about greater use of agency staff in a bid to address some of the waiting list issues, but the Omicron wave has seen it forced to use those staff to cover isolation for others who have Covid or are isolating as a close contact.
The committee yesterday also spoke of critical incidents being declared at more than 20 NHS trusts – effectively one in six trusts signalling that priority services cannot be safely delivered, primarily due to a shortage of staff.
Guernsey does not have the ability to easily pilot in staff from neighbouring hospitals and trusts, and so we should remain thankful that by careful management of Omicron, the island has not reached this stage, though HSC said that ‘services are very stretched’.
It is impossible to say when HSC, which also has no opportunity to commission support from UK providers at this time, might be able to turn attention back to elective surgery, but islanders will want to see those waiting lists cut as soon as possible.