Seven local hospitals and dozens of others across New York will officially place elective surgeries on hold starting Thursday.

Many hospitals had already started to do that before the governor's executive order went into effect. The state mandate is only in place at hospitals with a bed capacity of 10% or less due to COVID-19 hospitalizations.

In the Rochester region, that includes:

  • Strong Memorial Hospital
  • Highland Hospital
  • Rochester General Hospital
  • Unity Hospital
  • Geneva General Hospital
  • FF Thompson Hospital
  • Wyoming County Community Hospital

“Rochester Regional Health will postpone all non-essential elective inpatient, 23 hour and same day elective hospital surgeries and procedures for at least two weeks at Rochester General Hospital and Unity Hospital, effective Thursday, December 9,” a spokesperson for RGH said.

“This non-essential inpatient elective surgery postponement at Rochester General and Unity is in compliance with newly released guidance from the NYS DOH. Newark-Wayne Community Hospital is not on the NYS DOH “impacted facility” list; however, Rochester Regional has proactively decided to suspend inpatient elective surgeries there this week. At this time, Clifton Springs Hospital & Clinic, United Memorial Medical Center, office-based procedures and ambulatory surgery centers are not impacted. We are actively communicating with impacted patients and hope to resume inpatient surgeries at Rochester General and Unity as soon as it’s possible. As the area enters the third wave of this pandemic, Rochester Regional remains deeply committed to caring for the community. Patients should not delay necessary care at this time.”

"We have sites of service that, at least are now feasible, so that what may have been done in the hospital two years ago can be done out of the hospital," said Dr. John Dipreta, president of the New York Society of Orthopaedic Surgeons. "So there is no potential conflict of using bed space or ICU space or anything that might interfere with the hospital capacity and that would affect their ability to take care of COVID patients."

Elective surgeries are those that can be postponed for three months or more. Staff will call patients about any changes to their plans. The order does not impact patients who are in severe pain or those at clinical risk if a procedure does not take place.

The executive order is in place until at least January 15.