A Kirkcudbright GP has warned that a backlog of surgical procedures caused by Covid contingency measures could take “a long time” to clear.
Dr John Locke said the pandemic was impacting all sectors of the health service from local surgeries to hospital wards.
The GP spoke out amid growing evidence that Covid was having a huge knock-on effect on waiting times for straightforward operations.
He told the News: “In our practice we cancelled all routine reviews but now we are doing as much of that as we can.
“Non-life threatening things like hip and knee replacements have taken a big hit and that’s going to take a long time to catch up on.”
The GP highlighted other negative Covid impacts across the health service – from local surgeries to hospital wards.
Dr Locke said hospital capacity had also been reduced because infection protocols were the same for all patients testing positive – whether Covid was the reason for their admission or not.
He said: “It may be better for the patient if they are not having to deal primarily with Covid – but you still have to isolate that person.
“You can’t have people with Covid in one part of the ward and people coming in for routine surgery in the other.
“If you have a 30-bed ward with 15 Covid-positive patients you can’t put 15 people without the virus in the same near space. And that has an impact on the entire ward.”
The GP also expressed cautious optimism that the pandemic was finally receding after almost two years.
And he noted Public Health Scotland figures showing that Covid hospitalisations in the region were continuing to fall.
He said: “That entirely reflects the milder severity of Omicron compared with previous variants.
“Hospitalisations for Covid are certainly a lot less than a year ago.
“And people who are in hospital are having a shorter length of stay.
“With Omicron patients generally feel quite rotten for the first couple of days then recover.
“The majority of people testing positive are not contacting us.
“However, we are not seeing many older people being infected yet and that could come in the next two or three weeks.”
Dr Locke added: “My own opinion is that a lot of the population want things to get back to normal.
“People are nothing like as nervous as we were a year ago.”
Latest NHS Dumfries and Galloway figures show Covid hospitalisations in the region continuing to fall.
In the week to January 31, a total of 20 people testing positive were admitted to hospital.
That compares with 43 in the seven days to January 25 and 51 in the week before.
The figures include patients admitted primarily because of Covid and those with the virus but hospitalised for another reason.
