Cleveland Clinic Suspends Nonessential Surgeries Due To COVID-19

Cleveland Clinic will  postpone nonessential surgeries requiring a hospital or intensive care unit (ICU) bed from Dec. 7, 2020 through Jan. 4, 2021.

The rise in COVID-19 cases has led to more patients in the hospital and the ICU, hospital officials said in a statement.

“We are currently experiencing the highest volume of patients with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic,” hospital officials said.

 “With these steps, we are proactively making more beds available to accommodate what we anticipate will be a continued increase in COVID-19 patients needing hospitalization."

Essential and urgent inpatient surgeries like heart surgeries and cancer procedures will continue as scheduled, officials said.

The new policy affects all Cleveland Clinic hospitals in Ohio except Lutheran Hospital.

For the first time since the start of the pandemic, there are more than 5,000 coronavirus patients in Ohio hospitals, Gov. Mike DeWine announced this week.

More than a thousand of those patients are in the ICU.

Hospital officials in all parts of the state have said the rise in COVID-19 cases have led to understaffing.

The clinic also announced the Marymount Ambulatory Surgery Center in Garfield Heights will close, and patients will be redirected to Marymount Hospital or another Cleveland Clinic location.

Outpatient surgeries at the Cleveland Clinic will continue.

Akron-based Summa Health suspended elective surgeries beginning this week.