In an effort to clear beds for COVID-19 patients, Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen is rescheduling elective procedures that require overnight hospitalization.

The hospital started rescheduling elective procedures this week.

Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen took similar steps during July and August, when the Rio Grande Valley experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases.

"With the increase in COVID hospitalizations over the past few weeks and the capacity issues that the hospital is now facing, we are taking every effort to ensure that our inpatient beds are available for those patients who need our care most," according to a statement released by Valley Baptist Medical Center on Friday. "Because of this, we have reverted back to a similar process that we had in July/Aug where all elective cases requiring overnight stay are temporarily being rescheduled at this time. Any emergency or medically urgent procedures (as deemed necessary by the physician) are still proceeding as normal and we are still accommodating elective outpatient cases that can leave same day. Our schedulers are working closely with our physicians and patients to ensure we can reschedule as timely as needed and apologize for this inconvenience."

The decision to reschedule some elective procedures only affects the Valley Baptist hospital in Harlingen; the hospital in Brownsville is not affected.