Eastern Health is working on bringing services back up to a higher level after canceling most non-urgent surgeries and procedures when the public health emergency was declared in March.

Moving to Alert Level 3 on Monday means some of those appointments can now be rebooked.

Eastern Health has been operating at about 25 per cent of normal capacity over the last few months and the Vice President of Medical Services, Dr. Larry Alteen, isn’t sure exactly how big the backlog may be.

He says in any normal week they have about 1,000 patients who come through their ambulatory clinics. They perform about 400 endoscopies in a week, while they do about 40,000 medical imaging procedures in a month.

This week, Ernest Barnes of Summerford told VOCM Open Line he doesn’t expect to survive the wait for his heart surgery, while others are being told that it’s unlikely they’ll get their surgery in a timely manner unless things take a turn and they end up in emergency.

Eastern Health CEO David Diamond understands the worry that causes.

He says triaging is being carried out by clinical experts, which means “those at greatest risk in the community ought to be those who get in for services at the earliest opportunity.”