More and more hospitals are postponing operations | Inland

The University Medical Center Utrecht decided on Wednesday to scale down regular care by 15 percent, but expects to have to decrease even further, because the number of infections and admissions is increasing. Emergency care continues, such as chemotherapy, heart surgery or psychiatric treatment. But people who already had an appointment to get a new hip or knee, for example, have to wait for the time being.

Hospitals in the regions of Rotterdam-Rijnmond and South Holland South are also postponing non-urgent operations. That decision applies to the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Dordrecht, the Beatrix Hospital in Gorinchem and the IJsselland Hospital in Capelle aan den IJssel. Each hospital itself looks at how the so-called downgrading can best be arranged. The hospitals have recently been taking in so many corona patients that, according to the healthcare region, “it is not possible to continue regular care to the full extent” even when patients are transferred to other parts of the country. Hospitals in Zeeland fall under the same consultative body for the southwest of the Netherlands, but for the time being they are not scaling down care.

Previously, hospitals in, among others, Noord-Holland, Flevoland, Noord-Brabant and Groningen decided to postpone appointments due to the second corona wave.

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