Status of hospital services

In early March, following direction from the Province, Scarborough Health Network (SHN) made the difficult decision to reduce non-essential services and restrict visiting across our hospital network. Recently, we have received guidance from the Ministry of Health, Ontario Health, and the Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health allowing hospitals to begin moving forward slowly with resuming these activities.

Thanks to the commitment to safety across our hospitals and community, SHN is pleased to announce that we are able to gradually begin to offer certain elective procedures and services that were previously stopped or restricted.

Stay up to date on the status of certain clinical and non-clinical services and activities.

What has resumed

• Select elective surgeries

• Selective elective Cardiovascular and Stroke procedures

• Select elective Diagnostic Imaging activities

• Select Medicine program activities

• Select Women’s and Children’s program activities

Please wait to be contacted for your appointment

As we resume services, we are starting by contacting those who have been waiting and are now eligible for their elective procedure. We understand that many of you will be eager to have your procedure. As we work through the postponed appointments, we will contact you to schedule.

Preregister for your appointment

If you have been contacted by SHN and your procedure has been scheduled, please complete the online preregistration form 24 to 48 hours before coming for your appointment.

Ongoing safety measures

In order to ensure your safety and continue to reduce the spread of COVID-19, there will continued safety measures in place:

• Screening at entrances

• Visiting patients

Who to contact

For answers to specific questions, we encourage you to reach out to the department that scheduled your procedure for any questions you may have. They will provide you with specific instructions on how to prepare and what to expect for your procedure.

Clinical services

As part of our safety measures to protect patients and staff, many of SHN’s non-essential services and activities have been reduced to limit the number of people at the hospital unnecessarily and allow for proper physical distancing.

Some of our clinics and programs are not seeing patients in person at this time, but are offering services virtually by video, on the phone, or online. Please check with program directly to find out if a virtual care option is available.

Non-clinical services

Volunteer services

• For the health and safety of volunteers, particularly those who are elderly, all Volunteer Services (including Patient Family Advisors and Spiritual and Religious Care Volunteers) have been cancelled
• As volunteers are critical to operating hospital gift shops, they have been closed

Spiritual and religious care

• To support social distancing, Worship Services will only be conducted virtually and livecast on Channel 76 for General and Birchmount (Centenary does not have access to Channel 76, so staff are exploring another technology solution)
• Visiting clergy supporting patients on a one-on-one basis will continue — they will be treated as visitors and will be screened upon arrival

Regional Cardiovascular Rehab program

• Normally we have over 100 volunteers onsite and at our satellite sites helping with peer support and education
• We are leveraging technology to provide this care virtually in order to continue this essential work

Information desks

• Volunteers will not be available to gather wheelchairs and return them to the lobby for use by patients

Registration kiosks

• At our Centenary hospital, there will not be volunteers to assist with using the patient registration kiosk machines, so please ask someone nearby for help if you need it and try to be understanding

CAVA (Call ahead for Volunteer Assistance) program

• As this service will not be available, please leave extra time to get to your appointments