Swift and decisive actions on the part of healthcare and hospital authorities arerequired to effectively contain the current COVID-19 pandemic. These measures firstlyallow personnel and facilities leeway to provide surge capabilities to meet anticipatedincreased demands on the healthcare service. In addition, by deferring none urgenthospital visits, admissions and investigations, such measures support social distancingand aid attempts to control disease transmission. Deferring perceived non-urgent patientservices may however lead to unintended delayed diagnoses and exacerbation of currentpatient conditions and lead to increased emergency admissions and surgeries.A policy decision was made that essential surgical services pertaining to cancer andurgent cardiovascular surgery were allowed but that surgeons had the option to postponewhat is assessed to be less urgent cases. Increasingly patients also postpone theirsurgeries or visits because of anxieties over the developing situation. Elective surgicalservices at the Outram Campus were thus significantly reduced from January 2020 as partof the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.The surgical philosophy during this period was that a judicious policy that allowedsurgeons to proceed with surgery deemed critical but to postpone those deemed less sowill at the system level, avoid poor outcomes for patients who required surgery and yetsuccessfully re-allocate resources required to address the unfolding pandemic.