Close to 650 Manitobans with debilitating sleep disorders have been sent out of province for treatment in the last three years because the wait for medical attention at home is too long.
Manitoba Health has approved 643 people to be treated for their sleep disorders in Ontario between 2005 and March 2008 at a cost of $714,622, according to data obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
Manitoba's sleep clinics have been plagued by extremely long waits for years, sparking outrage from some patients suffering from fragmented sleep that can cause everything from fatigue to diabetes, heart failure and high blood pressure if the problems like sleep apnea are left untreated.
The number of the people on the wait list for Winnipeg sleep clinics has skyrocketed in recent months, after the sleep lab at St. Boniface Hospital closed and beds were consolidated into the Health Sciences Centre.
As of March, 3,033 people were waiting to get into the sleep clinic -- up from 2,330 people last September.
Heidi Graham, spokeswoman for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, said the region is now operating as few as four sleep-study beds instead of eight, in part due to several technologists who sought jobs with private industry or elsewhere in the health care system.
"This is a temporary blip," Graham said.
But Dr. Jeffrey Lipsitz, medical director of the Sleep Disorder Centre in Brampton, Ont., said paying for patients to get treatment won't solve the problem, and that Manitoba needs to look for solutions at home.
"The cost to the taxpayer is enormous. It just boggles the mind," Lipsitz said. "For $714,000, you could fund a four-bed sleep lab in Winnipeg and clear the wait list. It really doesn't make any sense whatsoever."
Lipsitz said Manitoba should investigate new technology that allows patients who suffer from sleep apnea to be treated in their home. He said patients can be monitored at home by automatic airway pressure systems that record the amount of pressure required to prevent them from not breathing during the night. That information can then be sent to a sleep technologist to review.
That way, Lipsitz said hospital bed availability and paying staff is removed from the equation, and patients are treated faster in a more efficient way. While few jurisdictions have made use of the technology, he said it might be time for Manitoba to start thinking outside the box for new solutions so patients don't have to suffer with potentially serious health problems while they wait.
"You could deal with that problem tomorrow in Manitoba," Lipsitz said. "It's really quite an abysmal situation."
Last year, the province announced it will invest $4.6 million of its federal wait times reduction fund to allow the sleep clinic at Health Sciences Centre and St. Boniface Hospital to operate seven days a week instead of five and do 1,800 more tests a year.
While the lab at St. Boniface has since closed, a new sleep clinic is slated to open in the Misericordia Health Centre in June. However, it won't be operating at full capacity -- 10 beds -- since there isn't enough staff.
jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca
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