The South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) is giv­ing as­sur­ances that it is pro­vid­ing the full suite of med­ical ser­vices at its fa­cil­i­ties—es­pe­cial­ly The­atre Ser­vices, Out­pa­tients Clin­ics (OPC) and triage as­sess­ments at Emer­gency De­part­ments—de­spite the con­straints of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, the SWRHA says mem­bers of the pub­lic have been able to ac­cess surg­eries, re­ceive con­tin­u­ous treat­ment at its Out­pa­tients Clin­ics, and ob­tain im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion at its Emer­gency De­part­ments.

“In 2020, the Au­thor­i­ty suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed 10,583 surg­eries, de­spite the lim­i­ta­tions posed by the COVID-19,” the state­ment re­ports.  “The SWRHA is grad­u­al­ly re­turn­ing to a nor­mal the­atre surgery sched­ule, cur­rent­ly aug­ment­ed by an au­to­mat­ed sur­gi­cal wait­ing list man­age­ment sys­tem, which will sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove our sched­ul­ing of the­atre ser­vices, ear­marked to re­turn to full op­er­a­tions from Feb­ru­ary 1, 2021. The Au­thor­i­ty has com­menced the process of con­tact­ing and in­form­ing pa­tients of ap­point­ment sched­ules,” the SWRHA as­sures.

The SWRHA re­lease al­so ex­plains how the Au­thor­i­ty’s Emer­gency De­part­ments func­tion.

“Mem­bers of the pub­lic are al­so re­mind­ed that our Emer­gency De­part­ments utilise the Cana­di­an Triage Acu­ity Sys­tem (CTAS), where pa­tients are triaged based on their need of care.  Most ur­gent cas­es are at­tend­ed to—first on pri­or­i­ty. It is not based on a first come, first served ba­sis,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The SWRHA state­ment al­so ad­dressed con­cerns over the op­er­a­tions of the Out­pa­tient Clin­ics (OPCs), which were af­fect­ed by the pan­dem­ic for much of 2020, and let to cre­ation of “telemed­i­cine ser­vices, in which doc­tors and pa­tients con­sult­ed via the tele­phone on an ap­point­ment ba­sis”.

“While all in-per­son sur­gi­cal OPC ser­vices re­sumed ful­ly in De­cem­ber 2020, the Au­thor­i­ty adopt­ed an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach, blend­ing telemed­i­cine with in-per­son con­sul­ta­tion ser­vices. Both med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and pa­tients hailed the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of this ap­proach,” the state­ment read.

The SWRHA is re­mind­ing all pa­tients re­quir­ing in­for­ma­tion on Clin­ic Ap­point­ment, The­atre Ser­vices or in­for­ma­tion on SWRHA ser­vices to call its toll free Cus­tomer Care Cen­tre, at 87-SWRHA (877-9742).