Concordia opens new OR, plans additional 1,000 hip, knee replacements each year

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This article was published 19/06/2023 (810 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new operating room has opened at Concordia Hospital, with a plan to perform an additional 1,000 hip and knee replacements annually.

With $5.9 million in annual operating funding for its fifth operating room, the East Kildonan-area hospital is also adding four in-patient beds. The additional 1,000 joint replacement surgeries are expected to be completed among in-patients and same-day appointments.

Approximately 27 full-time positions in various disciplines have been added to staff the new Winnipeg operating room, including a new orthopedic surgeon, six nurses, 2.5 health-care aide positions, a physicians’ assistant, and additional positions in anesthesiology, X-ray, biomedical engineering, physiotherapy, medical device reprocessing (which sterilizes the equipment), and pharmacy.

Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon made the official announcement on hospital grounds Monday morning, along with leaders from the hospital and Concordia Hospital Foundation and a recent knee-replacement patient.

Roxy Goudy, a Selkirk resident, had her surgery at Concordia six weeks ago, after suffering chronic pain in her left knee for about 20 years. She expressed gratitude to hospital staff for her care. She got on the surgical wait list at the end of 2020.

“And I’m feeling fantastic,” Goudy said. The retired health-care aide credited a healthy diet and regular exercise for easing her recovery.

The new OR was previously announced with funding from the province’s diagnostic and surgical recovery task force. Earlier this year, the group announced it had managed to cut the COVID-19 pandemic backlog for hip and knee replacements by more than 50 per cent.

Full details on current wait-list lengths and wait times haven’t been released.

Carrie Fruehm, Concordia Hospital president and chief operating officer, said it’s the recruitment of additional staff that will make the new ER work.

“And for our new staff: thank you for choosing to join our team here at Concordia Hospital,” she said.

NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara called out the province for promising the new OR would open in December 2022, then delayed it by six months. In a statement, Asagwara referenced patients being left waiting at Concordia, after 171 surgeries were cancelled from November 2021 to January 2023.

“This comes after seven years of PC health-care cuts in northeast Winnipeg. The premier shuttered the Concordia Hospital emergency room and CancerCare clinic, and cut community IV services without notice to patients in the middle of the pandemic. The Stefanson government’s agenda of cuts over care has delayed essential surgical procedures, and Manitobans deserve better,” Asagwara stated.

About 240 donors raised $350,000 through the foundation to help fund the project.

Over the past year, 6,000 hip and knee procedures were completed across Manitoba, 600 of which were funded through the task force, the provincial government stated.

Concordia Hospital completed 1,974 hip and knee surgeries during the same time period, with 78 funded by the task force.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca