by Dave Muoio | December 7, 2021
Thirty-two New York hospitals facing low capacity due to increased COVID-19 are being ordered to halt elective surgeries scheduled for Friday or later, state officials confirmed Monday afternoon.
The protocols are the result of an executive order signed by the governor in late November that empowers the New York State Department of Health to limit “non-essential, non-urgent procedures for in-hospitals or systems with limited capacity to protect access to critical healthcare services,” according to a press announcement.
The state is using a cutoff of 10% staffed bed capacity to determine whether a halt is necessary, although the governor’s office said the state’s health department will also take “regional and healthcare utilization factors” into account.
During a Monday press conference, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the approach is a more measured take on the blanket shutdowns hospitals in the state endured during 2020.
“We did not want to return to a scenario in the early months of the pandemic where there was a wholesale shutting down of elective surgery regardless of what the infection rate was in the region,” she said during the Monday press conference.
