Health chiefs have confirmed that dozens of non-urgent operations at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI) have been cancelled this week.
NHS Grampian decided at noon on Monday to postpone a number of admissions and surgical procedures.
The situation was supposed to continue for “a few days”, but NHS Grampian has now revealed postponements will continue until the end of this week.
A spokeswoman for NHS Grampian said yesterday: “From 127 total patients receiving elective procedures today, only six patients had their procedure postponed today.
“By the end of the week, a further 13 non-urgent routine procedures will be postponed. No further postponements are planned.
“Postponement of an operation is never a decision that is taken lightly, and we will always explore every opportunity to avoid this situation.”
NHS Grampian blamed a number of factors for the cancellations which come after 73 operations out 1248 scheduled at ARI in January were postponed because of capacity or non-clinical reasons.
The spokeswoman added: “These challenges are neither unique or new. The reasons are multi-factorial but would mainly include: intensive care beds being fully occupied, high-dependency beds being fully occupied, and general wards being very busy.”
NHS Grampian also explained that postponing non-urgent procedures was one of the ways to ensure emergency services were not affected.
The spokeswoman said: “We would like to reassure people that emergency and urgent procedures are unaffected.
“Hospital services do experience unexpected peaks in demand at various points throughout the year and postponing non-urgent, elective procedures is one way that we are able to safely ensure emergency capacity remains unaffected.”