Hospitals resuming elective surgeries

Bassett Healthcare Network is among several upstate hospitals resuming elective surgeries.

Newschannel 2's kirk tupaj explains who will be seen, and the financial impact the shutdown has had on the hospitals.

Starting this week people seeking elective surgeries may be allowed into the hospital.

Bassett healthcare network officials spoke this morning about how they plan to implement elective surgeries.

While they have been doing surgeries on an emergency basis, they'll now be prioritizing patients with the greatest need first, like patients with cancer, or someone having extreme pain.

In order for a hospital to open, it first has to meet a list of state mandated criteria.

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None .

None sot: dr. william lecates, president bassett medical center new york state requires that we have available critical care capacity for an influx of patients that might come quickly and unexpectedly.

So we are ready for that at any moment in time, and there are specific numbers that the state requires in terms of a percentage of available critical care beds, and a percentage of available hospital beds.

This is all part of the formula for our being allowed to resume elective procedures.

It is those elective procedures that the hospitals count on for a good portion of their income.

Sot: kirk tupaj and just like many businesses across the state, the shutdown which began in march is costing the hospital millions in revenue.

Sot: william streck, president/ceo bassett healthcare network that's tens of millions of dollars that are a consequence for our organization, but it will probably be 3 months, 4 months before we can really get a full accounting of the consequences here.

Mohawk valley health systems is also resuming elective surgeries with similar financial burdens.

Sot: darlene stromstad, president/ceo mvhs we're on target to have lost $31 million by the end of may.

So we have put many things in place to sort of stop that bleed, but we still need to sort of crawl back out of this financial hole.

Mvhs has furloughed staff and cut as many expenses as possible, but stromstad says medicaid and medicare costs for patients are not fully covered, so elecvsurgeries andprocedur are