short answer: no. It happens, move on.

a bit longer answer: an elective operation with no immediate danger to a person’s life like a heart operation is going to be postponed no matter what if more than one doctor calls in sick. It also happens if there are not enough anesthesiologists.

Why I’m asking this question. On my last post somebody wrote:

Nobody deserves to have their medical treatment withheld, even temporarily, even if it was an elective procedure.

My take: the person who wrote this and all of them who upvote him don’t work in healthcare and have unrealistic expectations of what working in a hospital entails, don’t consider the workload a nurse has to endure and how the general population’s respect of nurses and doctors but specially nurses has tanked since covid.

Any heart operation is always more important than an elective one that can be safely postponed.

It’s not only a respect issue, but a literacy one as well, as many patients and their family members come to us with really stupid questions and resent us when corrected: no, statins do not cause dementia, no, the pills your friend gave you so you don’t have to inject yourself with insulin twice a day for the rest of your life so your diabetes doesn’t spike are BS and are the reason why you feel tired and dizzy.

Nurses are no longer celebrated but considered as malicious agents with a hidden agenda, insulted and struck.

I wrote sick doctors, but in emergencies or mass casualty incidents several or all elective surgeries get canceled.