ITHACA — Cayuga Health says it will again start performing outpatient elective surgeries the week of May 4 at its Cayuga Medical Center and will bring back some of the 200 employees who recently took voluntary furloughs. Cayuga Health’s Schuyler Hospital in Montour Falls will resume elective procedures on May 12. Elective outpatient procedures are […]
ITHACA — Cayuga Health says it will again start performing outpatient elective surgeries the week of May 4 at its Cayuga Medical Center and will bring back some of the 200 employees who recently took voluntary furloughs.
Cayuga Health’s Schuyler Hospital in Montour Falls will resume elective procedures on May 12.
Elective outpatient procedures are an important part of Cayuga Health’s business and service to patients. Cayuga Medical Center performed 6,942 such procedures in 2019 while Schuyler Hospital conducted 391, John W. Turner, VP at Cayuga Medical Center, tells CNYBJ.
Cayuga Health says the resumption of elective surgeries is possible because it meets Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s requirements. New York State requires fewer than 10 new hospitalizations of coronavirus patients in a county over the past 10 days in order for the elective procedures to resume in that county. Patients also must test negative for COVID-19 before undergoing a surgical procedure.
“For the past seven weeks, COVID-19 has impacted our operation throughout the Cayuga Health system. Per the governor’s announcement last week, our team is preparing, and getting ready. Safety is our first priority on meeting the needs of our elective surgery patients,” Dr. Martin Stallone, president and CEO of Cayuga Health, said in a statement. “We are ready and able to resume elective surgery with an adequate supply of PPE, all infection control measures will be followed, and safety monitoring is already in place to make sure our patients are safe. Our team in surgical services has been working hard over the past several weeks to prepare for the reopening of outpatient elective surgeries and we are ready to resume.”
Cuomo on April 21 announced that hospitals would be able to again start performing elective outpatient procedures on April 28 in counties that meet the guidelines for new COVID-19 hospitalizations and bed capacity.
The governor in March ordered hospitals across the state to cancel elective surgeries to make room for a flood of COVID-19 patients, which largely has not materialized in the Southern Tier, Central New York, and other parts of Upstate.
Elective surgeries that are scheduled in advance — such as hip and knee replacements, tonsillectomies, and hernia repairs — are generally hospitals’ biggest generators of revenue. Losing that revenue source, along with reduced patient visits to their doctors, has led to a spate of health systems across Central New York and Upstate implementing furloughs, pay cuts and freezes, and other belt-tightening measures.
Cayuga Medical Center recently said the COVID-19 crisis reduced its hospital volume by 50 percent. The hospital adopted a series of measures to address the shortfall, including reassigning employees to its COVID-19 testing site in Lansing and sending staff to help at New York City hospitals, according to Stallone. The organization’s senior leaders also took salary cuts. Finally, Cayuga Health instituted a temporary, voluntary furlough of employees and 200 full-time workers signed up for it. The health system plans to return all its employees to work after its patient volumes and revenue return to normal levels.
