Tuesday, 8 February 2022

Ministers statements: elective surgery

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:14): I rise to update the house on the resumption of elective surgery. We saw a resumption of elective surgery in the private sector yesterday, and that is a result of the fact that this is a safe and prudent set of measures that we have put in place to make sure that our public and private systems operate in the best possible cohesive and coordinated manner in response to the sort of pressure that has not been seen in the lived experience of both sectors. It is clear that omicron and COVID-19 have put pressure on our system like never seen before, which is why, amongst other things, a pandemic code brown was declared for non-urgent elective surgery earlier in January.

Depending on case numbers, hospitalisations and, sadly, the critical need for ICU and other care, further changes to the 50 per cent rule that was introduced yesterday we can foreshadow, I hope, for elective surgery based on the advice from both the public and the private health sectors in coming days. From yesterday private hospital day procedure centres were able to resume up to 50 per cent of elective surgery as a result of case loads and hospital demands now starting to head in the direction that we all welcome. In addition, subject to that ongoing decline of the rolling seven-day average for hospitalisations, I look forward to formalising arrangements with the private hospitals to continue their support for the public health system during the COVID-19 response and, should that capacity be required, moving to 75 per cent and beyond.