Surgical, diagnostic wait times grow in June

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This article was published 17/08/2023 (752 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba government failed to make progress on surgical wait times in June, logging longer waits for cardiac surgeries and hip replacements, as fewer procedures were completed and the need kept growing.

Median wait times stayed the same for knee replacements, cataract surgery, and non-replacement hip and knee surgeries, compared with the previous month, the most recent data from the provincial Diagnostic and Surgical Recovery Task Force shows.

With the exception of cataract surgeries, fewer surgeries and diagnostic tests were performed in June across the categories tracked in the task force’s online dashboard.

Wait times did improve for bone density diagnostic imaging tests — the only one of 10 tracked procedures to log a shorter wait in June. (The median wait time for bone density scans dropped from nine weeks in May to eight weeks in June. In June 2022, the median wait was 12 weeks.)

For cardiac surgeries, the median wait was four weeks in June, up from three weeks in May and unchanged from four weeks in 2019. For hip replacements, the median wait was 21 weeks, up from 19 weeks in May, and down from 23 weeks in 2019.

It’s disheartening news for Karen Bennett, who is among the thousands of Manitobans waiting for a knee replacement. In June, 342 knee replacements were completed, compared with 356 in May. That number has been ramping up over time; In 2019, the monthly average of completed knee replacements was roughly 247.

But Bennett has been waiting more than a year with no surgery date in sight. The uncertainty, she said, is mentally crushing.

“If you could see a light at the end of the tunnel, it gives you something to work with,” she said. “But there’s no light there.”

The 76-year-old Ste. Anne resident had her right knee replaced last summer and is still waiting to have the left knee done, along with surgery for spinal stenosis. The former caterer spent her career on her feet. She now relies on painkillers for the constant aches — “if you took a hammer and hit your knee every minute, that’s a good example” — and cooking a meal she used to be able to prepare in minutes takes all day.

“The pain is so mentally and physically exhausting,” she said. “You don’t have that many years left, and if I have to live in pain like this, I don’t want to.”

It’s been four years since she learned she needed surgery. Bennett said if she was able, she would stage a protest over wait times. The longer she has her bad knee, the worse her back gets, and vice versa. A holistic triage process — one that takes into account the ripple effects of long waits — is what patients need, she said.

The pandemic backlog, which the provincial task force considers separately from the ongoing wait lists, has been eliminated for “primary” orthopedic hip and knee- replacement surgeries, a government spokesperson told the Free Press late Thursday.

“Wait times for these surgeries are close to or better than target,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

Wait times for MRIs increased from 18 weeks in May to 19 in June. The waits for CT scans, ultrasounds and myocardial perfusion imaging stayed the same from May to June, but the wait for all of those tests is longer now than it was in June 2022, according to the online dashboard.

The government spokesman said supply-chain issues had an impact on the wait times for myocardial perfusion.

The wait times continue to grow or remain stagnant for certain procedures as the demand for those procedures grows. In almost all cases, patient volumes increased. There were slightly fewer patients waiting for hip replacements in June, and fewer waiting for cataract surgery.

Cataract surgery caseloads increased in June, while in all other categories, the number of completed cases fell. (Patient-volume data for non-replacement orthopedic hip and knee surgeries was not available).

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“More Manitobans are getting care faster with an increased capacity in a stronger, more resilient public health care system,” the provincial government statement said.

Seventy-one Manitobans went out of province for procedures in June, according to a government spokesman.

In the spring, task force officials acknowledged wait times are still too long. They said a provincewide data-management system was expected to be rolled out by early September to track wait times for all surgeries, and that Shared Health was working on setting target wait times for procedures in the provincial health-care system.

“There are unacceptable wait times, and were, even pre-COVID in some areas, and we’re continuing to work on those… and bring them down to acceptable levels,” said Dr. Peter MacDonald, chairman of the task force’s steering committee, during a news conference in May.

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com

Katie May
Multimedia producer

Katie May is a multimedia producer for the Free Press.

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