Hospitals in Nelson and Marlborough plan to book in close to 150 procedures over the next week that were deferred during alert level four.
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Nelson Marlborough Health chief executive Lexie O'Shea said the health board completed 123 urgent planned care procedures that couldn't be deferred during the lockdown and had to postpone 150 procedures.
She said given hospitals were still operating under restricted conditions, it was too soon to know the overall impact on its planned care.
With the return to alert level three, Lexie O'Shea said the health board had the potential to book in 144 procedures over the next week.
It had also reduced the number of visitors able to see patients, after earlier easing visitor restrictions and allowing up to three approved visitors to see patients, one at a time.
Lexie O'Shea said on Friday that given the greater risks posed by the Delta variant of Covid-19, a decision was made to reduce the number of visitors per patient to one.
The health board previously said heading into alert level 3 that each patient was able to nominate three visitors, who could see them one at a time.
"We know with Delta that people are infectious earlier and spread infection more. So at Alert Level 3, any person in our community carries with them an element of risk. By reducing the number of people and the number of interactions, we reduce the risk to our patients and staff."
To further reduce any potential exposure risk, each patient could see their nominated visitor from the same bubble once a day between 2.30pm and 8pm.
There were exceptions to the policy, if someone was nearing the end of their life or required additional support due to a physical or mental disability.
