More than 1,700 surgeries cancelled in city after pandemic restrictions lifted, NDP says

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This article was published 08/05/2023 (853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg hospitals were forced to cancel more than 1,700 surgeries in the 10-month period after COVID-19 restrictions were dropped in the province, according to documents obtained by the Manitoba NDP.

During question period in the legislature Monday, Opposition Leader Wab Kinew blamed the cancelled procedures on the Progressive Conservative government’s mismanagement and accused the the Tories of ignoring proposals to add surgical capacity.

“Manitobans are waiting too long to get the surgeries that they need too often,” Kinew said, tabling a response to a freedom of information request that showed 1,788 surgical procedures scheduled at eight Winnipeg hospitals were cancelled on the day of, between April 2022 and January 2023.

“Surgeries are being cancelled because a lack of resources, a lack of capacity in our health-care system because of PC cuts,” the Fort Rouge MLA said.

The numbers provided by provincial health authority Shared Health and released by the NDP included surgeries cancelled or postponed between November 2021 and January 2023. Shared Health indicated some of the cancellations were due to medical reasons or patient deaths.

In January 2022, amid a surge in COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, 238 surgical procedures were cancelled at the eight sites. Misericordia Health Centre and surgical centres outside Winnipeg were not included in the tally.

According to the document, the cancellations spiked again in April 2022, one month after the Manitoba government lifted all COVID-19 restrictions.

After a four-month decline in cancellations, numbers spiked again in the fall, with 196 procedures cancelled in November 2022, according to the documents.

In January 2023, 138 surgeries were cancelled, and over the full 15-month period there were 2,623 cancellations.

Kinew argued the Tory government cannot blame cancellations on the pandemic, owing to the lifting of restrictions in mid-March.

“Some of the worst numbers happened just last fall, at a time when this government was already moving on from the pandemic, and should rightly have been focused on providing more surgeries to the people of Manitoba,” Kinew told reporters following question period.

He pointed to an increase in cancelled orthopedic surgeries at Grace Hospital last fall as an example of the government’s failure to add surgical capacity.

Last November, surgeons at the hospital wrote a letter to Health Minister Audrey Gordon pleading for help to meet demand for joint replacements, saying the hospital was struggling to offer a basic standard of care because of a staff shortage.

At the time, scheduled elective cases were reduced by 20 per cent at Grace Hospital to minimize cancellations. The surgeons had previously advanced a proposal to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to increase capacity, which they claim was rejected.

“If you had your hip or knee surgery cancelled during this period, the solutions were right there in front of the government, they just refused to listen,” Kinew said Monday.

Premier Heather Stefanson defended her government’s work to reduce surgical and diagnostic backlogs from the COVID-19 pandemic in question period and thanked the task force charged with reducing patient wait lists.

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According to the task force, the overall pandemic backlog for surgeries has been reduced by 32 per cent since it began its work in October 2021, with backlogs eliminated in 10 areas. The task force estimates 180,000 cases will be cleared over the next two years.

Stefanson said the government is funding an expanded intensive- care unit at Grace Hospital and a new orthopedic operating room planned for Concordia Hospital will add capacity for hip and knee replacements.

“I know the members opposite don’t want to hear this because it’s good news for Manitobans,” Stefanson said, “but we will continue to stand up for Manitobans each and every day.”

Stefanson noted spending on health care has increased by 22 per cent since the Progressive Conservatives took office in 2016.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca