Bendigo Health chair Bob Cameron said the hospital was keen to complete more elective surgeries on site in the coming weeks.

At a conference on Wednesday morning, Mr Cameron said staff had "treated more patients than ever before" in the last financial year.

"We're looking forward to ramping up, that ramping is already occurring," he said.

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"We hope in the next couple of weeks we will be back and chugging away.

"This financial year, not withstanding the pandemic, we are going to treat more people than ever before and we are going to do more operations than ever before.

"It makes us one of the best performing hospitals in Australia and that's something Bendigo Health is very proud of."

Bendigo East MP Jacinta Allan said this announcement was an "important step forward".

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"There is no doubt the last few weeks and last couple of years have been really challenging while working through a pandemic.

"Particularly the last couple of months with pressure from Omicron, it has placed pressure on health services and particularly on health staff.

"Nurses here and around the state have been working flat out, taking double shifts and not taking leave to continue to provide quality care for patients because been additional workload coming through door."

Earlier

All elective surgery across public and private hospitals will resume by the end of the month, as the impact of COVID-19 continues to subside and stabilise.

From Monday, February 21, the elective surgery cap for private hospitals will increase from the current 75 per cent to up to 100 per cent, while regional public hospitals will deliver any elective surgery based on their individual capacity.

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Public hospitals in metropolitan Melbourne will also be able to perform Category 2 surgery, while private hospitals in metropolitan Melbourne can undertake up to 75 per cent of any elective surgery activity, increasing from 50 per cent.

Health Minister Martin Foley signed off on the plan, which he said would balance the health system response and workforce pressures.

Mr Foley said he would also consider further changes to allow all surgery to resume from February 28, subject to supporting streaming sites, with a focus on treating Category 1 and Category 2 patients.

Each hospital will individually assess their own capacity based on staff availability and COVID-19 demands, with 44 hospitals still operating as COVID-19 streaming hospitals, including Bendigo Health.

"We understand that this has been a difficult time for many people waiting for surgery and we thank them for their patience while we managed the peak of the Omicron variant," Mr Foley said.

"With hospitalisations steadily declining and staff availability improving, we're in a strong position to remove the remaining restrictions and ensure delayed appointments can be rescheduled as quickly as possible."

"Our entire healthcare workforce has done an incredible job getting us through the Omicron wave.

"Our approach needs to be cautious and steady to ensure they're able to cope without being further affected by fatigue and furloughs."

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The changes come after the state government lifted its Code Brown emergency alert on Monday.

Bendigo Health was among six regional hospitals to lift the measures put in place in mid-January to cope with surging Omicron case numbers.

The rolling seven-day average of COVID-19 hospitalisations is 457 patients, decreasing from a peak of more than 1,200 patients in mid-January 2022.

The number of staff unavailable due to COVID-19 has dropped by around two-thirds, currently at around 1,400 people.

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