Omicron crush adds to mammoth backlog, doctors report

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This article was published 17/02/2022 (1349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thousands more cases have been added to the mammoth backlog of delayed surgeries and procedures after Omicron upended hospitals in what is described as the most damaging COVID-19 wave of the pandemic.

Doctors Manitoba estimated 2,168 surgeries were delayed in December and 5,615 diagnostic procedures were delayed in January, bringing the total surgical and diagnostic backlog to an estimated 161,585 cases.

The number of surgeries postponed throughout January is anticipated to be as bad, or worse than December, though recent figures were not available Thursday.

“What we’re seeing is this Omicron wave has had the largest impact on our health-care system and the surgical and diagnostic backlog,” Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Kristjan Thompson said. “It’s my understanding that this wave has been the most disruptive.”

Doctors Manitoba estimates 250 cases were added to the backlog each day in the past month, the largest increase in a year. Shared Health said from Nov. 22 to Feb. 6, approximately 3,500 fewer surgeries were performed in Winnipeg, compared to the same period prior to the pandemic.

Either way, Thompson said the backlog is a major concern for physicians and he warned Manitobans to remain cautious when COVID-19 restrictions are eliminated by the provincial government over the coming weeks.

“We all play a role in solving this massive surgical and diagnostic backlog,” Thompson said. “Our hospitals are still in a tenuous position. You can help take pressure off our hospitals by slowing the spread of COVID-19.”

The news came with deep disappointment, but not as a surprise for people who are waiting.

“I’ve almost given up expecting things are going to get better,” said Kim Riddell, 60. “It’s not going to improve in the foreseeable future.”

Riddell has been waiting for surgery for spinal stenosis for more than three years after her operation was postponed indefinitely in March 2020. She said it feels as if the government has given up on tackling the backlog.

“I’m disappointed that they’re lifting the restrictions in the course of the next month. It seems to me that’s likely only going to make the backlog worse,” Riddell said, adding public health orders should only be lifted when surgical levels are closer to normal.

“I suspect that the numbers are just going to continue to grow. I can’t see that they’re going to be able to tackle the backlog in the near term.”

Riddell said she wants to hear the province’s diagnostic and surgical recovery task force’s plan to restart and sustain services in Manitoba, over and above sending a handful of patients to hospitals in Fargo, N.D.

The Manitoba government had not finalized its agreement with Sanford Health Fargo to accept spinal surgery patients as of Tuesday. The initiative to send some patients to North Dakota was announced by the task force on Jan. 19.

“While discussions continue, we do not have an update to report,” a spokesman for Sanford Health told the Free Press this week.

A spokesman for the province did not answer questions about the arrangement on Thursday, saying the task force will provide an update in the “near future.”

Sugeons meanwhile are being crushed by the weight of their patient lists, said Dr. Gerry Clayden, who works at Carman Memorial Hospital.

Clayden has not been able to run his operating room since December when the health authority shuttered its doors for long overdue repairs to the ventilation system. And while it appears surgeries may resume in March, Clayden said his proposals to perform operations in the evenings and on weekends have been rejected.

“The operating rooms, the endoscope suites need to be open longer, the diagnostic, X-Ray departments need to be open at night, and so on,” Clayden said. “How else are you going to clear it?”

“It’s money, it is inertia, it’s torpor and it’s lack of accountability,” he said of the mounting delays in delivering care.

NDP critic Uzoma Asagwara said the latest increase to the backlog is deeply troubling.

“The PCs’ failure to take care of families living with pain and uncertainty is inexcusable and it will leave a stain on their record that Manitobans will not forget,” Asagwara said in a statement. “They’ve done nothing to address this problem but make empty promises. Manitobans deserve a government that fixes problems and makes health care their No. 1 priority.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca