Ottawa Hospital to stop allowing visitors, postpone non-urgent surgeries

File photo of The Ottawa Hospital. (CTV News Ottawa)

The Ottawa Hospital is prohibiting general visitors and postponing non-urgent surgeries in line with new provincial restrictions.

“The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) will be postponing non-urgent surgeries, procedures and ambulatory care activity to ensure that we can continue providing urgent and emergent care to those in need,” the hospital said in a news release Monday.

The move is in line with a new Ontario government directive pausing all non-urgent surgeries starting Wednesday in order to prepare for a rapid increase of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore said pausing non-urgent surgeries will free up 1,200 to 1,500 extra beds, which will be "essential to be able to provide oxygen and care" to Omicron patients.

The Ottawa Hospital says care teams will identify which surgeries and procedures will be postponed on a case-by-case basis, “based on factors such as urgency and the health situation of each patient.”

If you’re scheduled for surgery in the coming weeks, you will hear from the hospital shortly, the news release said.

Also effective Wednesday, general visitors will not be allowed in the hospital for the “foreseeable future.”

The hospital will allow one essential care partner at a time for each patient. An essential care partner is a support person, often a family member of close friend, whose presence is considered essential to a patient’s safety and well-being.

Exceptions for visitors will be made based on compassionate grounds.

The hospital asked the public to continue to follow public health guidelines by wearing masks, practicing good hand hygiene, limiting contacts and most importantly, getting vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19.

“Health-care workers continue to lead us through this pandemic. They have been called heroes, but they are also human, and have endured so much to ensure that we can continue to provide the essential health-care programs we offer to our community.”