MARATHON — The North of Superior Healthcare Group is getting ready to restart its ophthalmology and cataract surgical program at Wilson Memorial General Hospital after a long hiatus.
NOSH Chief Executive Officer Adam Brown stated it was the uncertainty of COVID-19 that made them put the program on hold.
“We put it on pause back in 2021 during the peak of the COVID uncertainty largely because of the restrictions that were in place on and just about everything around travel, the ability to make sure that our staff and our patients were safe,” said Brown.
“If you can imagine ophthalmology programs, specifically in cataracts as well, when you're getting that kind of service, you get right in each other's face. Literally inches apart and unable to wear eye protection and for the most part, unable to wear mouth and nose like a mask as well. It just didn't feel safe at that point."
Now that COVID-19 health restrictions have lessened, NOSH decided it was time to bring the program back.
However, it wasn’t without its growing pains. With the surgical program being essentially shut down for two years several logistics need to be put into play before starting back up again.
“It took us a little while to re-establish a relationship with our former surgeon and start getting the schedule back in place for him and his assistant to travel,” said Brown.
Longstanding surgical doctor Dr. Mike Rogelstad is returning from Strathroy, Ont., along with his assistants to continue their work with ophthalmology and cataract surgery, according to Brown. Rogelstad has been performing ophthalmology services to patients regionally for the past 30 years offering consultations, cataract surgery and follow-up.
As well, testing the equipment and retraining staff to use the equipment is a top priority before any surgeries can be done.
“There’s some refresher training that's required of our staff. We need to make sure that our equipment is safe and they're reliable before we start up. We're working on that right now,” Brown said.
Meanwhile, Rogelstad has been consulting with patients. Since consultations began on June 19, Rogelstad had done six days that saw, on average, 30 patients who have come for various eye ailments.
“Many of those eye ailments will result in surgery at the end of the process, but not all of them, of course. We now have, with those six days, identified 36 people, and placed them on a waiting list for the actual surgery in the program. The goal is to have a surgical program, either at the end of September or into October,” said Brown.
Brown said that they are limited to doing 52 surgeries by the end of the fiscal year.
“But the limited factor is that we need to compensate the surgeon and their assistant for their travel expenses. We should give a kudos where it belongs. The Ministry of Health has recognized that most surgeries, not just cataracts, but most surgeries got well behind during COVID and extra money is being dedicated to reducing wait lists. We do have some ability to access some extra money to likely do more than 52 cases,” said Brown.
