THUNDER BAY – It will be some time before Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre gets back to normal operations.

But in the coming days, Dr. Stewart Kennedy said the hospital should start to see some return to normalcy, with the resumption of some high-priority surgeries that have been delayed for the past month because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kennedy said it’s important to start clearing some of the surgeries now, or face extended waits when the provincial restrictions are lifted.

“We want to make sure that we don’t have such a significant backlog of surgery, especially here in Thunder Bay when things get backlogged, we already have a long waiting list for some procedures,” Kennedy said.

He cautioned it’s still only high profile operations that will be considered, ones doctors believed could be safely delayed for a month with no impact on the patient.

“These are some of our cancer surgeries. These are some of the surgeries that require more timely intervention so they don’t wait at home and the disease progresses,” Kennedy said.

Elective surgeries are still a no-go at this time.

Kennedy said the decision to reopen some operating rooms is part of the hospital’s recovery phase as the COVID-19 outbreak progresses.

To date, the region has seen 51 cases, with 37 deemed resolved. The hospital is currently treating five confirmed cases and 22 presumptive cases, and Kennedy said the facility is at about 65 per cent capacity.

That’s slightly higher than the low of 59 per cent after efforts were made to clear place in case there was a surge in coronavirus cases.

Kennedy said a group of surgeons and other health-care professionals will decide who gets to go under the knife at this time.

“We cannot hold because of COVID-19, because illness still occurs in the community,” he said.

The hospital has been conducting surgery throughout the pandemic, but only emergencies and high-priority cases.

“We’ll be looking at doing them into next week after the team reviews who the priorities are.”

Surgeries will include endoscopies, Kennedy said.

The hold-up could be the supply chain.

“There’s a few challenges there. There’s a world-wide shortage of drugs right now. These are the drugs (we need) to sedate individuals for operations and also sedate them for procedures. So we have to be cautious that we’re not overusing the drugs we have available,” Kennedy said.

The province has cautioned hospitals to ration the use of a number of different drugs, up to 20 Kennedy said.