Hospitals free to resume some elective medical procedures

LACONIA — Some elective medical procedures are now permitted in New Hampshire under an easing of business restrictions announced by Gov. Chris Sununu, but any changes will be gradual, LRGHealthcare President and CEO Kevin Donovan said.

Sununu said Friday that hospitals – as soon as Monday – would be permitted to resume doing time-sensitive but non-emergency procedures like a biopsy, MRI, CT scan, knee or hip surgery.

But in order to accomplish this, a hospital must meet various guidelines, including having enough personal protection equipment and testing capacity to make sure any relaxation of the restriction elective procedures will not lead to increased spread of COVID-19.

Kevin Donovan, president and chief executive officer of LRGH, said that in order to do elective procedures, the hospital would first need to test the patient to make sure they are not an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier.

“We don’t have the ability to do that now, maybe in a few weeks,” Donovan said.

LRGH received an AVID Labs machine that can return the results of a COVID-19 test in about 20 minutes, but only were given 60 cartridges to go with the machine. It has since received 50 more cartridges. Each test requires one cartridge.

“The challenge is that the cartridges are a very limited resource and we have to treat them as such and use them for those in greatest need,” he said.

Donovan said time will be needed to delineate which time-sensitive procedures should now be allowed.

“It’s not a real bright line between emergency and urgent and urgent and time sensitive or time sensitive or non-time sensitive,” he said.

It could come down to case-by-case decisions on whether the severity of someone’s illness and the capabilities that are available are such that the procedure should be done.

“We have been talking about plans to bring services back in the future, with no known date. Now we have the ability to bring some but not all services back, but that will take time to implement.”

Donovan said that, in general, the easing of restrictions on elective procedures is a positive development.

“I do think it's good news for the state of New Hampshire, including health care facilities, providers and patients,” he said. “Clearly social distancing has had a positive impact on decreasing the spread of coronavirus and the resulting COVID-19 disease. It’s good that we’re starting to talk about bringing services back.”

Early last month, LRGH furloughed 600 employees, almost half its workforce, as the company struggled financially. Elective services bring in revenue, and ending such services to create pandemic capacity made it difficult for LRGH to keep its doors open.

The furlough was to last a maximum of 120 days. Outpatient services were greatly reduced.

Donovan said the hope all along has been that the furlough wouldn’t have to last that entire time. Resuming some elective surgeries could reduce the length of the furlough.

Also, LRGH received almost $10 million in assistance from state and federal sources to help it through the pandemic.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said Monday that New Hampshire rural hospitals and healthcare providers will receive $115.4 million in a third installment of federal grants under the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act.

“Now more than ever, we need to ensure that health care is accessible to all who need it, which is especially critical in our rural communities. Our rural hospitals and providers have been forced to furlough hundreds of workers and are struggling to keep the doors open as we deal with the greatest health crisis of our time,” Shaheen said.