Yavapai News

After three consecutive weeks without a COVID-19 patient, Verde Valley Medical Center (VVMC) is reopening elective surgeries. 

Verde Valley Medical Center and Flagstaff Medical Center haven't experienced a serious outbreak during the pandemic and with no new cases, the healthcare centers are beginning to resume elective surgeries, Red Rock News reported. 

Gov. Doug Ducey allowed elective surgeries to resume May 1 in the state, but Verde Valley Medical Center didn't resume them until May 26. 

“We think that that will be a cautious ramp up to ensure that we’re taking all the precautions we need to safeguard staff as well as patients and families,” VVMC Chief Administrative Officer Ron Haase told Red Rock News. “It also takes time to get surgeries back into the pipeline. The people that were scheduled or were going to be scheduled are now being notified that we are doing it again. We think it will take us a while to get back to normal, as much as a few weeks to as much as a month or more. One of the things we don’t know is what a new normal looks like. We know how many surgeries we typically had on a daily basis before and we’ll see if that ends up being how we operate in the future. I would say at least probably a couple more months before we’ll be back to what I would call being close to normal.”