Saturday, July 11, 2020
-
Roper St. Francis Healthcare will suspend all elective surgeries starting July 14 to free up staff
The unrelenting flood of COVID-19 patients combined with the number of teammates exposed or infected with COVID-19 are presenting unprecedented staffing challenges.
The Charleston community is facing a health crisis. To ensure we have enough clinical caregivers to care for patients, Roper St. Francis Healthcare is suspending all elective, non-urgent cases as of Tuesday, July 14 at 12:01 a.m.
We apologize for the late notice on this Friday afternoon, but we must take immediate action to free up staff and beds. A total of 131 patients with COVID-19 are being cared for across all four of our hospitals, and COVID-19 patients comprise 37 percent of all inpatients.
We recognize that the majority of our surgeries, while labeled elective, are necessary, and we are doing our best to balance caring for our patients with the available remaining staff.
We will continue to perform emergent cases and urgent and those that are “life-and-limb threatening.”