Evening News Update for May 7 2020

📸 Province launches a renewal plan for surgeries / via Province of BC Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

NANAIMO—Two people have died from COVID-19 in BC and 33 more people have been infected with the virus in the past 24 hours. Both deaths were in care homes on the lower mainland. So far COVID-19 has killed 126 people in this province. Island Health has reported three new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 126 here and 2288 cases province-wide. There is no change in the number of cases at three lower mainland poultry plants or at the federal medium-security prison in Mission.

Thousands of cancelled surgeries will resume in BC hospitals, starting in a little over a week from now, but it will cost close to a quarter of a billion dollars to do it, and up to two years to catch up. The Minister of Health says more than 14,000 scheduled surgeries were cancelled in March, and 16,000 more from waitlists were put on hold to ensure hospital beds were available to treat COVID-19 patients. Now that the COVID case count has flattened, the system is taking advantage of that lull, along with the usual lull in surgical bookings in the summer. Adrian Dix says the catch-up plan means extending operating room hours, performing operations on the weekends and increasing the number of surgeries over the summer. Priority will be given to the most life-threatening cases like cancer surgeries, followed by other surgeries whose wait times exceed twice the recommended wait times. Private clinics will also be used to clear most of the backlog in day surgeries, like cataract surgery. Surgeries at private clinics will be covered by the provincial medical services plan. Health officials estimate that by mid-June, the number of surgeries performed will be the same as it was before the pandemic. Nevertheless, it will take between 18 months to two years to clear the 30,000 case backlog. The waitlist for surgery, currently at 92,000, will continue to grow. And a spike in COVID-19 outbreaks will reduce the number of surgeries that can be done.

Overdoses from illegal drugs in the Island Health region saw a huge spike in March when 18 people died from overdoses. That's an 80 per cent increase from February. Province-wide, there were 113 illegal drug overdoses, a 61 per cent jump since February. Every health authority saw an increase in such deaths. Harm reduction specialists believe the spikes are due to the shortage of street drugs since the pandemic began. They say users are more desperate to get their hands on any supply, and more and more of those supplies are being cut with Fentanyl. There were no overdose deaths at safe consumption sites.

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Lisa Cordasco

Senior Reporter and News Director — Lisa is responsible for creating the station's first morning news current affairs show on CHLY. She is also deeply involved in training and mentoring student and citizen journalists who volunteer their time at the station. Before joining CHLY, Lisa spent 35 years in various roles at CBC Radio, from host to reporter. Her passion for journalism and radio has led her to Nanaimo, where she intends to provide CHLY listeners with news they can use, in an alternative radio environment. Her other not-so-secret passion is costuming for any occasion.

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