'There will be more people coming forward': Ontario hospitals will operate at 115 per cent capacity to clear backlog of procedures

The Ontario government announced Wednesday that the province is investing $324 million for hospitals to ramp up surgeries, medical procedures and diagnostic imaging hours.

"Ontario’s hospitals have been unwavering in their commitment to provide exceptional care to Ontarians," a statement from Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Christine Elliott reads. "While the pandemic has been challenging for hospitals, we have made significant progress in addressing wait times for surgeries and other procedures and are in a much better situation than was expected mere months ago."

"As Ontario continues on the path to reopening and recovery, our government is committed to improving access and reducing wait times for scheduled surgeries and procedures across the province."

As part of Ontario's surgical recovery plan, hospitals will be able to operate at 110 to 115 per cent capacity to manage surgical backlog from the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Elliott said it is hard to put an exact timeline on when Ontario will be able to clear its backlog of medical procedures.

"We are dealing with the backlog of people we have now but there will be more people coming forward that will need help, after they’ve had some of these routine procedure that they may not have had for several year," she said.

The deputy premier added that the provincial government is prepared for a COVID-19 "increase" in the fall and that's why the investment has been made to increase volumes of surgical procedures in Ontario.

"COVID is still here and we still need to have the resources to manage it," Matthew Anderson, president and CEO of Ontario Health said.

"With the success of our vaccine strategy and the other tools that we’ve been using, right now COVID is at a manageable level. We hope that it will stay that way through the fall and into the winter... Obviously, we don’t want to go back."