The big wait — 456 days and counting

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/07/2023 (1102 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s health-care system, already damaged by years of provincial cuts, was hit even harder by the pandemic when backed up procedural and surgical waitlists ballooned even more, as hospitals scrambled to make room for COVID patients and prioritize the critically ill. By April 2022, wait times of 20 to 30 weeks for hip or knee replacements rose to a median of 35 weeks, with many waiting much longer. More than 3,000 patients awaited surgical tables.

In April 2023, Manitoba claimed its pandemic backlog had been chopped by 32 per cent, eliminated in 10 categories, and reduced in six more. But hip and knee surgeries were noticeably absent from that victorious list. Manitoba has been silent for some 15 months about the number of those patients still waiting. Judy Waytiuk is one of those patients.

April 9, 2022

To the woman at my local supermarket who zipped past my cart as I paused, clinging to it like a lifebuoy inside the entrance, and bellowed, “You’re blocking traffic!”: I hope you never suffer endemic, vicious pain that shoots from your groin to your ankle when you walk, forcing you to stop moving periodically so one more step won’t buckle your leg and drop you to the floor.

But the verbal cruelty finally moves me to do something. It’s been worsening for over a year. I book a physiotherapist, who says “You need a hip replacement. See a sports medicine doc. Now.”

Mid-May

Yes, says the doc at the first available appointment; he puts me on The List, tells me cortisone shots are last-ditch pain relief; the cortisone hastens joint deterioration. I book the shot.

Many weeks later, I receive Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) forms to fill out. Do I want a surgeon in or outside Winnipeg? I choose inside Winnipeg. It will be at least 14 months wait to see the first available surgeon just to consult, then 18 months later for the surgery.

So, 32 months.

But take heart. The province is developing an action plan.

July

I do the recommended exercises twice daily, 40 minutes plus 15 with heated packs to calm the howling nerves which result. I pop Tylenol and Naproxen.

For the first time ever, I cannot run my dogs in agility training. I try. I hobble off the 20-obstacle course five obstacles in, weeping.

I buy a cane. I hate the damn thing.

My neighbours quietly assume mowing and raking the massive boulevard that is my responsibility. I’m on a corner inside lot, in a bay with no front street, just swaths of green boulevard. I protest over the fence that they shouldn’t have to do it. They shush me.

The province says the estimated pandemic backlog on hip replacement is 35 weeks. Pre-pandemic, it was 30 weeks. But my wait is 32 x4= 128 weeks? No one at the WRHA can explain this.

Doctors Manitoba says anywhere from 1,631 to 3,131 “pandemic backlog patients” await hips — but how many were waiting before the pandemic? That statistic, apparently, does not exist. Helluva ballpark estimate.

August

The province signs agreements for out-of-province surgeries in Kenora, Dryden, Fargo, or Cleveland. I hear it on the news, start considering the option.

September

Since there’s no hope for a surgeon consult until spring 2023, I plan to winter at my little home in Mexico. My doc there can, he assures me, handle cortisone shots.

But first I call WRHA and ask to change to a surgeon outside Winnipeg, to be seen sooner. Well, how about Winkler? I’ll take it. I call the clinic immediately.

“We’re booking April-May now,” says the receptionist. “Would that work?”

That shaves a few months off. I wonder how long it would have taken the WRHA to get around to booking me in.

Yes, it works. I now eat Naproxen and extra-strength Tylenol like popcorn.

December 21

A news conference: few people have requested out-of-province surgery. People apparently don’t know it’s an option. When I get home in April after an excruciating set of flights where other travellers gave me their arms, dragged my carry-on for me, helped me along terminal hallways, I call and ask to go on that list. Just not Cleveland. Not flying home six hours after major surgery.

March 17, 2023

Only 176 patients have gone out-of-province for new hips. My GP orders me off Naproxen. It’s damaging my kidneys. She prescribes Tylenol 3 with codeine. It knocks me into couch coma and doesn’t ease the pain appreciably. I go back to the OTC version. I buy a walker.

May 9

I see the Winkler surgeon. The hip is now bone on bone. She’ll send me out-of-province; her waitlist is 10 months long.

May 30

The province says hip and knee surgeries have exceeded misty, unspecific “targets.” They don’t provide numbers. One more surgical suite will be installed at Concordia Hospital, where Winnipeg hips are replaced.

I cannot stand or walk for more than five minutes at a time. My muscle tone has gone to hell.

June 13

My GP does the required pre-op exam. The WRHA waitlist co-ordinator says I’ll hear from my “navigator” in about two weeks.

June 26, 28, and 29

I call the waitlist co-ordinator and ask her to ask my navigator, from whom I have heard nothing, to call. She does, on the 29^th, shortly after 11 a.m., and asks would I go to Cleveland?

No. The first available date in Kenora, Dryden, or Grand Forks, please. They’re all booking late September now, she says. Okay — I’ll take Fargo. How long before I hear? Oh, at least two weeks.

Papers rustle. “Yes, it’s all here, pre-op, mmm-hmm…” She can’t answer questions. Presurgery information classes? “Concordia does them but you’re going out-of-province, so I don’t know…”

Three hours later, there’s an email from Fargo, with a shiny new patient online account.

I doubt my “navigator” had picked up my file to forward it, before my petulant phone call.

July 3, 2023

Monday morning. Fargo calls. “Dr. Nelsen can do you on August 15, would that work?”

God, yes.

It will have been just over 16 months. The feint to an out-of-city surgeon, then out-of-province surgery, shaved off 16 months.

How many people don’t know to do that?

How many of that probable 3,131 (as of July 2022) — or more — are still waiting?

And why won’t the province report numbers for this particular surgery?

Because they’ve blown it… and they know it?

Judy Waytiuk is a retired Winnipeg journalist, desperate to get back into the world, running with her dogs and exploring Mayan ruins in Mexico. And to mow her own boulevard again.