May 2, 2020 / Jay Greene
Trinity Health Michigan, Henry Ford Health System and Beaumont Health in southeast Michigan are a few of the healthcare organizations that have begun to perform more of the surgeries and other procedures they delayed the past six weeks because of the COVID-19 crisis.
While Gov. Gretchen Whitmer didn’t lift any of the earlier restrictions she placed on nonessential surgeries and procedures, she urged residents on Friday to start scheduling them.
“We are encouraging anyone who has been holding off on surgery that really needs to be done to get that scheduled and to proceed,” Whitmer said Friday at a news conference.
The governor’s March 21 order halting elective procedures came at a time when southeast Michigan hospitals were bracing for a surge in COVID-19 patients and a dwindling supply of N95 masks, gloves, shields and other personal protective equipment for nurses and doctors.
“Now we’ve been able to build up enough that we can proceed with these other procedures and we’re encouraging hospital systems to move forward with that,” said Whitmer, who later added that oncology and knee surgeries “should be scheduled.”
