Put in place “to facilitate the comprehensive health response to the Delta outbreak”, the 75 per cent cap on overnight, non-urgent elective surgery was “safely removed due to the very high rates of vaccination in NSW and stable levels of community transmission”.
Non-urgent elective surgery resumed on October 25 in both public and private hospitals, following the resumption of day surgery (including IVF services) from October 5.
A NSW Health spokesperson said where necessary, local health districts may impose temporary restrictions at a hospital in the event of a local outbreak to ensure the community was kept safe and could access hospital care if required.
“All emergency surgery and urgent elective surgery continued during this challenging period,” the spokesperson said.
Patients due to receive non-urgent elective surgery impacted by changes made to facilitate the pandemic response, including the safety of health workers and patients, are being contacted and encouraged to seek medical attention should they experience a change in their condition so they can be clinically reviewed and re-prioritised to a more urgent category if required.
The NSW Government is providing $30 million to support private hospitals to undertake additional elective surgery to ensure that patients who have their non-urgent day surgery elective surgery postponed, will be scheduled for surgery as soon as possible.
