Elective surgery coming back to Iowa hospitals

Essential workers.

We're three days in to iowa hospitals being able to perform elective procedures again... so kimt news 3 is checking in with mercy one north iowa.

The hospital is preparing to reopen operating rooms. still, there are lots of decisions to be made about how to do that.

Kimt news 3's nick kruszalnicki is live in mason city with the details, nick?

George and katie?

The president of mercy one north iowa joined county leaders in a press conference earlier this afternoon.

He talked extensively about how the hospital will slowly begin performing elective surgeries again.

The hopsital is currently trying to make sure they have enough personal protective equipment for their staff and patients.

Starting surgeries up again will definitely use up more of their stocks.

Patients will also need to be tested for coronavirus 4?hours before going under the knife, which means more of their rapid test kits are going to be used up.

Mercy one north iowa president rod schlader says they're still a week away from booking procedures because they want to make we want to start services as soon as you want those back.

Obviously it's affecting us financially dramatically.

We would like to start those as soon as we can.

But our top priority is to keep people safe.

Another consideration for the hospital is being able to keep 30 percent of their beds free for covid patients?

As the governor requires.

That will limit the number of procedures they can perform.

Live in mason thanks nick.

Schlader also said the accuracy of covi?19 tests are improving?

From about 70 percent when the pandemic started, to about 90 percent accuracy these days.///