TEXAS – More surgeries will again be allowed to take place across the state after Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week he’s loosening restrictions on elective surgeries if they don’t deplete hospital capacity or PPE supply needed to fight COVID-19.
But hospitals have to meet these conditions: a promise in writing to reserve at least 25 percent of hospital capacity for COVID-19 patients, and no additional personal protective equipment can be requested. Elective surgeries have been on hold since March 22.
New Braunfels resident Roy Price is one of many patients waiting for cataract surgery, which was classified as "elective," and was postponed due to coronavirus. In Price's case, he's healing from cataract surgery on his left eye, but a day before his right eye surgery, his doctor informed him of the bad news.
"They postponed all elective surgery," Price said. "Which I thought was really weird because I wasn't in at a hospital getting this surgery, it was an ambulatory clinic where they do arthroscopic knee surgeries, they do cataract surgeries, they do simple type stuff. Why would they shut that down?"
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Price said while he can still see, his eyesight is “discombobulated.”
"My left eye sees distance and my right eye sees up close, which is just the opposite of what I'd ever experienced. And [my doctor] says, 'Oh yeah, you have monovision now.' And I went okay, I mean it's not totally uncomfortable but it takes a long time, it takes a while for my eyes to focus because my right eye’s fighting with the left eye. He told me my brain is kind of confused because one eye is working right and the other one isn’t. So it's weird," he said.
Price is still awaiting a call from his doctor to see about rescheduling.
New Braunfels resident Paula Horabin is in a similar position, but her cataracts surgery has been postponed three times.
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"I would not call my surgery elective surgery, even though everybody else does. It's a necessity," Horabin said. "The cataracts have been slowly getting worse, until about the past six months, they have gotten extremely bad the past six months. I cannot see, I can't read. I’m a big reader, I used to own a bookstore. I cannot read anymore; I can't do my puzzles anymore because I can't see. It's hard to even watch television."
Since the governor announced he's resuming some of these elective surgeries, Horabin's surgery is back on the schedule.
"I'll just be glad when things are back to, not the new normal, the old normal," Horabin said.