New York hospitals have started to resume urgent medical procedures that were put on hold amid the coronavirus crisis — but some hospitals say they are now scrambling to deal with the backlog.
Northwell Health, which runs New York’s largest hospital system, is scrambling to schedule over 12,000 non-coronavirus procedures now deemed urgent.
“We have a whole clinical team that is trying to prioritize which of these cases needs to happen sooner rather than later,” Terry Lynam, a spokesman for Northwell Health told The Post.
“We’re trying to address that backlog of cases.”
A procedure is classified as urgent if a delay of more than two or three months could result in long-term negative health implications for the patient, according to Lynam. This includes, but is not limited to, melanoma surgeries, gynecologic oncology, urologic surgeries, aortic aneurysm or severe peripheral artery disease.
Elective surgeries in New York remain suspended for now until the governor and state health officials deem otherwise. However, even these procedures can become more pressing as they continue to be postponed, adding to the backlog.
“In some instances, because of a prolonged delay, an elective procedure can elevate to medically necessary,” said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at NYU Langone Health, which has also resumed procedures that have been put on the back-burner during the pandemic.
And for some patients, this has been a frightening wait. Breast cancer patient Linda Tibbals underwent a lumpectomy at Northwell’s Glen Cove Hospital on March 4 to remove a tumor in her right breast but was afraid the cancer could spread when a follow-up surgery on April 8 was canceled.
“I just sat and waited and kept getting more concerned,” the 69-year-old Long Island resident told The Post.
“It wasn’t an elective surgery because I still had cancer in me. I had cancer inside me, and I wanted it out.”
Tibbals was eventually able to have the second procedure to remove the remaining cancer cells on April 29 at Northwell’s Syosset Hospital, which now claims to be a COVID-free hospital.
“I was lucky enough to not wait all that long,” she said.
Dr. Darren Schneider, chief of the vascular and endovascular surgery division at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center said he has only just started to rebook patients with “potentially life-threatening” conditions this week.
“Just this week we resumed vascular procedures for patients with serious potentially life-threatening conditions like aortic aneurysms, rest pain, and dialysis access procedures,” Schneider told The Post.
“Many of these were procedures that were originally scheduled to be done weeks ago, but had to be postponed because of the pandemic crisis. The fact now we’re able to move forward and treat these potentially life- and limb-threatening conditions that were put on hold, I think is a very positive sign.”
But even while the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York continues to drop — and hospitals are beginning to reschedule other procedures — medical experts fear some people are still deferring treatment because they are worried about becoming infected.
“I have patients with aneurysms that need to be treated who we’ve offered to get them to come in but they’re still not comfortable coming into the hospital,” Schneider said.
“They’re looking at what sort of risk they’re willing to accept — the risk that the aneurysm could rupture if it’s left untreated versus the risk of coming into the hospital.”
However, doctors say the risk of contracting the virus at the hospital is now very low.
“The overarching message is that our facilities are safe and if people have concerns about medical conditions they should seek treatment immediately and not put it off,” said Lynam, who added that the number of coronavirus patients at 16 Northwell hospitals has dropped to 1,085 from a peak of 3,500 on April 7.
Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island also now has an entire floor to treat those who are negative for the virus, while the emergency department has been divided into a COVID and non-COVID section. Patients are tested for the virus in a tent outside before even getting admitted.
“We certainly don’t want someone sitting at home and having symptoms of a heart attack and trying to ‘suck it up’ because they don’t want to come to the hospital,” said Alex Lutz, a spokesperson for RUMC.
“Get the help because nobody wants to see anything happen to anybody that could’ve been prevented.”