Pshaw, Elective Surgery...

   So to the approval and relief of  area hospitals, the ban on elective surgery has now been lifted, and the surgeons and other employees are now able to feed their families again. 
     You can have your elective surgery. What a boon!  It's not as if you've won a lottery. Elective surgery can be for diagnostic reasons, for cancer treatment, for previously scheduled orthopedic surgeries: in other words, for necessary treatments that have been postponed due to the Covid virus.
     The hospital community is grateful. Thank you for your business, they might say. But one of the conditions before being admitted to any surgical procedure is the necessity to have a Covid test. That's a good thing. Especially for surgical patients who are most likely not 100% healthy anyway, thus the need for surgery.
    However, the St. Peter's Health Care System, which encompasses St. Peter's Hospital, Albany Memorial Hospital, and Samaritan Hospital, all surgical centers, has designated only a single area for the pre-surgery Covid testing, which must be done 3 days prior to the scheduled procedure. That site is the parking lot of Albany Memorial Hospital. The time window I was given was from 8-9:30 a.m. Testing site is closed by noon.
    Presumably most of the prospective patients, especially those scheduled for procedures at the Troy location, are uneasy about their procedure, as well as the swabbing itself, are somewhat health-impaired, and may not feel like hopping on I-90 and driving an additional 50 mile or so round trip for  a tryst in the parking lot. They may have to arrange for transportation.
   There have been Covid testing sites set up in may places, on every street corner in some cities. I understand why, in the interest of testing accuracy,  St. Peter's would specify testing only at its approved locations. But why not have a site located at least in the city where the patient is to undergo surgery? I was told the site closes at noon, so it would seem possible to set up another location.
    If St. Peter's is so grateful for the return of "elective surgery" patients, why can't they try to make the process as less stressful as possible. It doesn't seem the added expense would be prohibitive.  And maybe fewer patients would further postpone their procedures.