Border-crossing surgery praised

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This article was published 18/09/2023 (767 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two weeks after having knee-replacement surgery at a private clinic in North Dakota, a Ste. Anne resident is ahead of schedule in her recovery and is urging those in the queue to put aside any reluctance and head across the border.

“I think it’s really unfortunate that we need to send Manitobans out of province or out of the country to have medical care, but at the same time, I am so grateful that I had this opportunity to be able to go,” said Glenda Knoll, 64, who had her second knee replacement at Fargo’s Sanford clinic Aug. 31 via Manitoba’s Surgical and Diagnostic Recovery Task Force.

“If people are waiting because they don’t want to go into the States, they prefer to be (in the Canadian health system and) stay within the provinces, I think that they should just take the leap and go to Fargo. It’s an experience that they would never have here in Canada,” she said.

Knoll was on a surgical waitlist for more than two years to have her left knee replaced after having her right knee done about six years ago. She learned in April that she was eligible to have the surgery performed out of province and it took a few months to schedule the surgery. The procedure went well and Knoll stayed in the hospital overnight post-surgery before heading home the next day. The only issue she had was a four-hour wait after the surgery for the pharmacy to provide her with all of the pain-management supplies she needed to go home. She was given two weeks’ worth of medication so she didn’t need to worry about getting a refill when she returned.

Knoll likened the private clinic to “a five-star hotel” and raved about the food — “you could order anything you wanted off the menu at any time” — and the valet service. Multiple clinic staff came to talk to her about post-op and recovery and a few physiotherapy sessions are included for her back home, Knoll said.

“There’s lots of perks to going out of province.”

It was also clear to Knoll that the American health system is struggling in its own ways and she questioned how people could afford such a system.

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For recovery, there’s no better place to be than at home and Knoll said she’s glad to be back and on the mend.

“I do think, if I had my preference, of course I would’ve wanted to stay here in Manitoba and have it done. That would’ve been the best way to go, but it certainly was an opportunity that I’m grateful to have had.”

The provincial diagnostic and surgical recovery task force doesn’t currently track total wait times for surgery, only the countdown to an already-scheduled surgery date. Task force officials have promised a new data management system to fully track wait times for all types of surgery. The system was supposed to roll out in early September provincewide. But in late August, a Shared Health spokesperson said the rollout has been pushed to October for Winnipeg hospitals only and full provincewide implementation is planned for the end of 2024.

A Shared Health spokesperson stated that “Once complete, the SWIM system will provide: an ability to manage referrals, automatically add surgical patients to the surgical wait list and prioritize surgical bookings; electronic messaging between the surgeon’s office and hospital departments; a provincial perspective of scheduled surgical and procedural case volumes; an ability for surgeon offices to electronically submit clinical OR booking packages to the care venue for pre-registration, slating and pre-surgical assessment; and the necessary service demand volumes and surgical targets to make informed decisions regarding service and program priorities.”

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com

Katie May
Multimedia producer

Katie May is a multimedia producer for the Free Press.

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