Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that elective surgeries can resume again in New York City.
Elective surgeries, including at outpatient clinics, had been on hold since then end of March because of the coronavirus. Healthcare resources were instead focused on victims of the deadly contagion at its height. But as the number of local cases and deaths dwindles, state authorities have eased up the surgery restriction.
NYU Langone Health told The Post in a statement Monday that its healthcare system “has received authorization from the State Department of Health to resume elective surgery, and are commencing with all services that were in place — prior to COVID-19 restrictions — at both our inpatient and outpatient locations, working first through the backlog of delayed procedures.”
Northwell Health, the state’s largest healthcare provider, told The Post last week that it had postponed 19,000 surgeries because of the virus.
The Long Island-based hospital system began resuming its elective surgeries last week, a rep wrote in an e-mail. Long Island has been ahead of the city in terms of reopening.
“We have resumed elective surgeries last week,” the spokesman said.
“In early May, we resumed so-called ‘urgent surgeries’ — such as cancer procedures and other surgeries that, if postponed more than 2-3 months, could result in long-term negative health implications for patients.
“In total, we postponed more than 19,000 surgeries as a result of the pandemic, so [we] have prioritized those that are more urgent while also trying to schedule elective procedures. [It] will probably take until mid-summer before we get to all of them.”