The B.C. government is reporting the most surgeries completed in a year in the province’s history.
According to the B.C. government, 337,560 scheduled and unscheduled surgeries were completed from April 2021 to March 2022, 21,284 more than the previous year.
Provincial officials said they are catching up with surgeries that were postponed due to COVID-19.
The province has completed 99.8 per cent of the surgeries for patients who had a booked surgery date and had their surgery postponed in the first wave of COVID-19.
Surgeries postponed in waves two and three are 96.2 per cent completed and those postponed in waves four and five and from extreme weather events are 78.9 per cent completed.
The waitlist in B.C. is currently at 88,365, a 5.9 per cent decrease from the year prior.
The government has also been increasing its operating times. Operating room hours increased by 17,341.
Health authorities have completed the training of an additional 400 perioperative nurses and 100 medical device reprocessing technicians.
B.C. government officials said they are focused on building on these achievements and finding new ways to deliver surgeries.