Surgery backlog data shows NDP wrong to kill task force, Tories charge

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This article was published 31/10/2024 (361 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The NDP government came under fire Thursday for its cancellation of a key health-care program aimed at eliminating Manitoba’s surgery backlog, as a new report reveals Manitoba has the second-longest wait list in the country.

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook called the cancellation of the surgical and diagnostic task force “short-sighted” and blasted the NDP government for axing it.

“And now we’re seeing that proven in the data,” Cook told reporters Thursday.

Last week, Manitoba earned the dubious distinction of having the second-largest surgery backlog in Canada, according to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The report shows the province’s backlog of surgical cases is 40,160 as of April, which is about 40 per cent of a typical pre-pandemic year of surgery volumes.

Only Newfoundland and Labrador has a bigger backlog.

Cook said the province would be in a better position if the task force hadn’t been dismantled.

The same CIHI report shows the provincial task force completed 85,000 diagnostic tests and surgeries in its two-year run.

“That’s over 85,000 Manitobans whose lives were impacted by the work of the task force, but its work wasn’t done. And then the NDP came into power and they cut it,” Cook said.

The task force was announced in late 2021 to address the province’s surgery and diagnostic wait times. The NDP government axed the program shortly after forming government in 2023.

The CIHI report shows the number of surgeries performed from April 2023 to March 2024 exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the first time, with 102,227 surgeries done.

To eliminate the backlog without adding any new surgeries would take five months, the report said.

Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Randy Guzman said the task force was an important initiative, but the he expressed more concern about the programs that never saw the light of day because of the project’s conclusion.

In addition to conducting surgeries, the task force was responsible for funding and delivering programs to aid in improving surgery wait times.

According to Guzman, a proposal for a limb preservation clinic at St. Boniface Hospital wasn’t given the green light following the change in government last October. The proposed clinic would have done preventative work in addressing diabetes-related illness and helped to cut down on the need for amputations.

“That’s an issue we’re still advocating for,” he said.

According to a separate, September CIHI report, Manitoba does more than double the national average of diabetes-associated leg amputations.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara defended the decision to end the task force, claiming it was mismanaged and the Tories spent millions of dollars funding it without addressing the backlog.

Asagwara said they have not seen the limb preservation proposal because it predated their time as health minister but has had discussions about improving health-care for people with diabetes.

Guzman remains concerned about the would-be programs that could address the surgical backlog.

“These are all important initiatives in their own specialties and we’re all trying to improve care and prevent patients from showing up in emergency and ending up on a wait list,” he said.

Winnipegger Cheryl Grewar had hoped a program announced by Shared Health last month would improve her chances of getting much-needed spinal neurosurgery, but she remains on a wait list with no appointment date in sight.

In September Shared Health announced a new electronic booking system that will give medical professionals the ability to prioritize patients. The system will show all patients who need surgery, including those who have waited the longest.

Grewar has been waiting two years for the surgery doctors originally said she’d get within three to six months, and is now considering going out of province to undergo the procedure.

“A number of doctors have said that’s really the only way, in their opinion, that I will get the surgery I need,” she said Thursday. “It’s disappointing and frustrating because I have paid a ridiculous amount of income tax over my lifetime to this country, and I obviously need the surgery and I can’t get it.”

Last week, the Free Press reported Winnipeg resident Shane Komar, who has waited nearly six years for back surgery, plans to have the procedure done in Germany.

Grewar feels, too, that is her only option.

“I’m a 62-year-old female, I’m never going to get to the top of the priority list,” she said.

The new booking system will replace the province’s current, piecemeal method of collecting patients on wait lists. It was introduced to Winnipeg hospitals in February and is scheduled to be implemented across Manitoba over the next six months.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca