Northern Arizona Healthcare Using Caution As Far As Restarting Elective Surgeries

Governor Doug Ducey gave the green light for hospitals to restart elective surgeries Wednesday, but Northern Arizona Healthcare says their two hospitals aren’t committing to a restart date yet. Focus at Flagstaff Medical Center and Verde Valley Medical Center remains on current treatment of COVID-19 patients, but they are looking into the possibility to returning to other operations. FMC chief medical officer Josh Trinkle says “we plan over the next couple of days to look at our overall plan and what those steps and restrictions are for being able to restart some of those elective cases.” He adds, “I expect we will do that around the first part of May, pending we can get those restrictions checked off.” Officials say eight patients were able to come off ventilators this week and continue to recover from COVID-19. Also six employees at Flagstaff Medical Center have tested positive with no deaths. Officials say they keep stocking up on masks and gowns. They recently received a shipment of around 200-thousand gowns and Senator Martha McSally delivered boxes of masks Thursday from Arizona State University and Barrows. The is still a call out for more masks for doctors, nurses and personnel. As of Thursday morning, FMC had 37 COVID-19 patients with 15 waiting for test results.