KITCHENER -- Thousands of Waterloo Region residents are waiting for their surgeries to be rescheduled after they were put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Area hospitals have started the re-booking process for non-urgent procedures, but one hospital CEO says it could take them a year to catch up.

Dylan Charbonneau is among the people waiting for a kidney transplant. His mother, a living donor, is ready to go, but the pandemic postponed his surgery.

He's still waiting for a new date.

"My mother and father got the call and they said it's probably closer to fall time now," he says.

"I'm trying to keep a smile on as much as possible, so continuing to just get out to the parks now that things are a little bit more open, to try not to think about it as much."

The fall timetable is months later than he had hoped, and he's not alone.

Grand River Hospital President and CEO Ron Gagnon says their waitlist is about 1,800 people. He says that they'll begin doing more non-urgent surgeries toward the end of the week.

"We are looking at the next eight weeks after that as well for surgery and for ambulatory care procedures," he says.

"My expectation is it will be the next 12 months at least that we are trying to catch up."

Over at St. Mary's General Hospital, they've started phase one of reintroducing their non-urgent surgeries.

"We have focused on our elective surgical procedures as well as procedures within the cardiac program," says acting vice-president of patient services Leia Faulkner.

Grand River Hospital opened 150 additional beds at the beginning of the pandemic, but is still sitting at about 80 per cent capacity.

At St. Mary's, the hospital is at 88 per cent, while Cambridge Memorial Hospital is at about 70 per cent.

Faulkner says that, before the pandemic began, St. Mary's was generally sitting at around 100 per cent capacity.

Across the province, Ontario Health says that 85 hospitals have resumed scheduled care so far. Another 19 hospitals plan to resume soon.

The hospitals in West Region have all submitted their resumption plans, Ontario Health says.