One of the NHS’s biggest hospitals has had to cancel urgent cancer surgery this week because so many of its intensive care beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients. King’s College hospital in south London called off all “priority two” cancer operations it was due to perform on Monday and Tuesday. Some cancer patients need to spend time in ICU after their surgery, and operations cannot go ahead unless the hospital has enough beds for that. If you put cancer surgery off for more than four weeks, that cancer can spread. Sir David Sloman, the boss of NHS London, said: “Urgent cancer surgery is not being cancelled in London.”Sources at King’s said it was “unlikely” to be able to perform urgent cancer surgery on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.

Source: The Guardian January 04, 2021 17:26 UTC