Taxpayers paid $24M for out-of-province surgeries By: Danielle Da Silva Posted: 6:39 PM CDT Monday, Jun. 12, 2023

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This article was published 12/06/2023 (832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Out-of-province surgeries contracted by Manitoba’s COVID-19 pandemic backlog task force have devoured about 18 per cent of its multimillion-dollar budget but account for less than one per cent of the procedures funded by the group.

Diagnostic and surgical recovery task force chairman Dr. Peter MacDonald has pulled back the curtain on the cost to send patients to hospitals in northwestern Ontario, North Dakota, Ohio, and other Canadian and U.S. destinations.

Approximately 18 per cent of the task force budget paid for contracts inked with surgical centres outside of Manitoba and to cover eligible travel expenses incurred by patients, he said.

It had a $40-million budget in 2021-22, and a $110-million budget in 2022-23.

The orthopedic surgeon was unable to provide the exact amount spent when asked by the Free Press.

“We are seeing that patients have had a very high satisfaction rate — and just to reiterate that this is a short-term measure until we build in-province capacity,” MacDonald said June 7, after announcing a $1.8-million, two-year agreement with the Sleep Disorder Centre at Misericorida Health Centre in Winnipeg.

“So, we don’t expect this out-of-province care to be a long-term solution to our backlogs.”

The province and task force have emphasized the relatively small number of patients receiving surgery out-of-province in comparison to tens of thousands of procedures completed in Manitoba and paid for by the task force.

It has paid for more than 72,300 procedures since it was struck in December 2021, including 43,600 in the public health system, the province said.

Just 478 surgeries were performed on Manitobans willing to travel outside the province— or less than 0.01 per cent of all task force funded procedures — as of early June.

Manitoba Health Coalition director Thomas Linner said the cost to send people away is a “staggeringly expensive and wildly inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” at the same time, proposals by local physicians and health-care leaders languish without funding.

“This needs to be a wake-up call for the government, for the task force and for Manitobans about what is being done on this issue and how much time, quite frankly, has been wasted on these efforts which should have been conducted within the public system,” Linner said.

The coalition — which is chaired by Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson and has board members from various labour groups — bills itself as a non-partisan advocacy organization.

It has been highly critical of the task force’s use of private, for-profit medical organizations in its efforts to eliminate pandemic backlogs, claiming the province has prioritized private corporations over the public system.

The government has argued out-of-province surgery provides an option to Manitobans in need of spine, hip, knee, foot, ankle and shoulder procedures to access care faster and improve quality of life.

The need for such agreements was identified by doctors to address backlogs, the government has said.

Linner called the program a distraction.

“Individual success stories simply cannot make up for the loss of time, the loss of money and the loss of attention to the kind of capacity that’s necessary within Manitoba,” he said.

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Prior to Friday, the Progressive Conservative government had refused to say how much the out-of-province surgery program has cost taxpayers.

However, in response to a request for comment from Health Minister Audrey Gordon, the government changed its stance and revealed less than $24 million had been spent on out-of-province surgeries.

The tab includes more than $440,000 for patients’ travel and accommodation expenses.

The task force is tracking expenses and final audited numbers will be posted as part of regular Manitoba Health financial reporting, the spokesperson said.

The value of contracts with hospitals in the United States — most of which were untendered — and the average cost per procedure remain unknown.

Contracts with stateside hospitals are not included on the province’s proactive disclosure portal, which reports information on contracts valued at $10,000 or more. Agreements with private surgical centres located in Manitoba are disclosed.

The task force has, however, acknowledged the surgeries would be more expensive than if they’d been done in Manitoba, but assured the public the province received a good deal.

“The total cost of agreements with out-of-province partners… could only be reported retrospectively as we are billed for care provided to each patient,” the spokesperson said.

Doctors Manitoba past-president Dr. Candace Bradshaw said out-of-province surgeries are an acceptable option only as long as they are short term and there is significant public demand and limited capacity.

“This approach is not new, and was used in the early 2000s to address a short-term need for radiation therapy,” Bradshaw said in a statement.

However, doctors want the primary focus to be on building surgical and diagnostic capacity in Manitoba, she said. “We continue to look for opportunities for physicians to work with the health system and the task force to develop local solutions to unreasonably long patient wait lists.”

NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara said the approximately $24 million spent to deliver care to 478 people is an exorbitant expense.

“If those dollars had been invested in improving health-care access here in Manitoba, far more Manitobans would have gotten the surgeries they need at a fraction of the cost,” the Union Station MLA said.

“We’re spending more money than what is necessary and we’re not helping as many people as we should be because of the PCs’ approach.”

— with files from Katie May

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca