Stracathro Hospital has resumed surgical procedures as NHS Tayside remobilises its services.
Four operating theatres and the surgical minor procedures unit are fully operational again and the surgical unit ward will also be open for inpatients and day cases.
The welcome development comes as covid numbers stabilise in hospitals across Tayside.
The teams at Stracathro have worked really hard throughout COVID-19 to keep as many services running as they could.
Their specialist skills meant they were critical to the pandemic response in caring for patients with COVID-19 and therefore they transferred to Ninewells Hospital to be part of NHS Tayside’s dedicated COVID response.
Now, in line with NHS Tayside’s Remobilisation Plan, as the number of patients with COVID-19 being cared for in Ninewells Hospital has stabilised, staff are returning to their specialist roles at Stracathro, enabling full surgical services to resume on site.
Stracathro provides elective or planned surgeries and therefore general surgery, orthopaedics, plastic surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery and dental surgery will all resume.
Surgical services are also expanding to include ENT and gynaecology.
Lesley Forsyth, Stracathro’s Clinical Group Manager said: “We are delighted to welcome our staff back to Stracathro.
“The remobilisation of services also sees the restart of elective orthopaedic operations every week at Stracathro. This means up to 100 orthopaedic procedures, including joint replacements, can be carried out every month.
“We are looking forward to welcoming patients back through our doors with more people now able to have the operations they have been waiting for.”
While Lorna Birse-Stewart, Chair of NHS Tayside, added: “Stracathro Hospital is a critical part of NHS Tayside’s Remobilisation Plan.
“This was demonstrated in November last year, when the surgical team treated the first patient in Tayside to have hip replacement surgery as a day case, where the patient walked out of the surgical unit a few hours after their operation, with the aid of crutches.
“I would like to thank staff from Stracathro who were redeployed to join colleagues in Ninewells to care for patients and help face the dual challenges of winter and COVID.”
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