SickKids hospital to begin ramping surgeries back up as respiratory surge abates

Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children — Canada’s largest pediatric hospital — says it will begin increasing surgeries on Monday.

SickKids decided to ramp down surgeries in mid-November to preserve its critical care capacity and redeploy staff to its overwhelmed intensive care unit and emergency department.

At the time, the hospital was dealing with a surge of children sick with the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) streaming into emergency rooms, which forced the hospital to cancel all surgeries except for emergencies or urgent procedures.

Pediatric hospitals across Ontario have also had to cancel surgeries in order to deal with a major surge in respiratory illnesses.

In an update on Thursday, SickKids says it has seen the number of patients stabilize to volumes usually seen this time of year.

The hospital says as a result, starting Monday, “SickKids will begin cautiously increasing capacity for scheduled surgical procedures.”

Associate Chief of Perioperative Services Dr. Simon Kelley says these past few months has been the most challenging time in the hospital’s history.

Six of its 16 operating rooms were shut down during the past two months, but they continued to provide emergency and time-sensitive surgeries during that difficult stretch.

“SickKids teams continue to work through a significant surgical backlog of more than 6,000 patients,” the hospital says, adding families who are waiting for a surgery date will be contacted in the coming months as their children’s procedures are booked.

One of the challenges SickKids also faced was a ransomware attack in December that affected several critical hospital systems. The hospital has since restored about 80 per cent of its priority systems.