Dignity Health announced the suspension of some surgeries due to growing hospital capacity

Dignity Health announced that it’s suspending some elective surgeries at its Arizona hospitals due to a lack of available hospital beds and personnel. Earlier today, we spoke with Dr. Shad Marvasti of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, about the concerns over dwindling hospital resources around the state.

“We stand at a very precarious place…I think the problem is that we’ve already entered a real crisis standards of care when hospitals, pretty much in every health system, are already rationing care to the point where we’re looking at elective procedures and activities that are necessary that are important but we just don’t have the staffing or the space, capacity, in terms of beds to be able to handle those,” Marvasti said.

These elective surgeries could include getting the gallbladder removed, or maybe a plastic surgery or even a routine colonoscopy to check for colon cancer.

He continued that some of these procedures are having to be deferred, “just because of how overwhelmed the healthcare system is.”

Although Dignity Health announced the suspension of some of these surgeries, all of the hospitals are in the same situation.

“No one is immune to this and it’s particularly impactful in rural Arizona where we already have a limitation of resources available and they’re already being pushed past that limit….people are not getting the standard of care that they should get given the fact that our hospital capacity is really being pushed beyond its limits,” Marvasti said.