CHEO postpones non-urgent appointments for the first two weeks of January

CHEO is not yet admitting many children and youth with COVID-19, as is reported in other parts of the world – but our specialized pediatric services are in high demand. Our beds are full of kids with urgent and emergent needs and our Emergency Department wait times are quite long. All this to say, there’s lots of need for CHEO and it’s not all pandemic-related right now. 

That said, we do need to make some adjustments to our scheduling based on how quickly the Omicron variant is spreading. Because the provincial government is requesting all hospitals to pause scheduled non-urgent surgical and procedural activity so that the health-care system can respond to the most urgent and emergent needs.  And because members of Team CHEO – just like many others in the community at large – are being exposed to the virus beyond our walls. We must therefore do everything we can to protect our ability to provide urgent and emergent care. The good news is everyone on Team CHEO is vaccinated, so they are recovering at home and we look forward to welcoming them back as soon as they can return to work.

For these reasons, we are currently reaching out to families where we can safely postpone non-urgent outpatient appointments in the first two weeks of January. Perhaps further out if necessary. In addition, this could impact some current scheduled surgeries and procedures. We need to immediately redeploy staff and medical staff to meet urgent and emergent care needs and offer essential pandemic response services including expanded vaccination, testing, screening, contact tracing and more.

If there are any changes to your currently scheduled appointment, procedure or surgery, we will contact you soon.

Thank you so much for your understanding.