Governor Tim Walz indicates Minnesota has made good progress on getting more personal protective equipment, and expects an announcement in coming days to revise the current ban on elective surgery in Minnesota. He says, “It has the implications of relieving the pain… [of] the people who are out there waiting. I want to just be clear and validate the idea if you’re waiting for a knee or a hip [replacement]… or this child who is waiting for back surgery, this has not been easy.”
Walz says revising the ban on elective surgery would also start adding to hospitals’ revenues, plus bring back health care workers who were laid off because their specialty wasn’t COVID or emergency care. He says hospitals will make the call on re-starting elective surgeries, if they have stocks of personal protective equipment beyond what’s needed for the coming COVID surge. “My pledge to you is, we’re not gonna stockpile all of this equipment if we know that the numbers, and we have a confidence level that’s high enough to believe that we can use some of that now for those types of surgeries,” he says.