Pain, suffering and provincial health-care problems

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/08/2024 (428 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a sad spectacle that we see far too often: Manitobans complaining to the media about overly long wait times for the medical treatment they need.

The latest example is the story of Roseanne Milburn, who told the Free Press last week (Woman vows to leave Manitoba after waiting six years for surgery, Aug. 13) that she has been waiting six years for double knee replacement surgery.

Milburn said she’s lost faith in this province’s health-care system. In constant pain and frustrated by years of waiting for surgery, she and her husband have listed their home in Elie for sale and plan to move to Alberta in the hope she can finally get the surgery she needs.

They have neither family doctor nor home lined up in Alberta but they feel they have no other option to relieve Roseanne’s suffering. They have been told anecdotally that wait times don’t exceed two years in that province.

It’s easy to understand the desperate decisions that people make when they are frustrated, in pain and losing hope. Before Milburn sells her home and heads west, however, she would be wise to read an opinion piece by Calgary resident G. Barry Brett, which appeared last week in the Calgary Herald (Sick, injured Albertans left waiting while health ministers dodge responsibility, Aug. 10).

In that piece, Brett said he developed significant pain in his left hip late last year and was referred to the Alberta Hip and Knee Clinic this past May. He tells readers that “The Alberta Bone & Joint Health Institute measured Calgary wait times for hip replacements in Q1 2024 as 70 weeks for a surgical consultation. The subsequent wait for treatment averaged 34 weeks. So the average total wait is 104 weeks.”

That equals approximately two years of pain and reduced mobility while waiting for surgery.

Brett said he assumed the long wait time was due to a lack of resources but he found there were at least eight organizations in Calgary, and more than 30 surgeons, offering surgeries in private facilities at the patient’s expense, with wait times of just three to six weeks.

He added, however, that “But, here’s the catch, you have to travel out of your home province for surgery. People from Alberta go to B.C., Manitoba, and Ontario for surgery; and people from B.C., Manitoba and Ontario come to Alberta for surgery.”

I’m not sure about the accuracy of that last sentence. I haven’t found a private surgical centre that performs knee or hip replacement surgeries in Manitoba but I did find some that perform the surgeries in Alberta and Quebec, at the patient’s expense. There are probably others, in other provinces.

Brett’s op-ed illustrates the perverse predicament that many Canadians, including he and Milburn, find themselves in. They can travel to another province for surgery in a few weeks, or they can stay at home and potentially wait for years. They can reduce their retirement savings, or they can stand in line with the rest of us, waiting and waiting.

This is the point in the discussion where some will complain that this is two-tier health care and it’s unfair for people who have money to get their surgery done faster than those who can’t afford the private option.

They’re correct but the flaw in their argument is that Canadians are free to travel to another province — or anywhere in the world, for that matter — to obtain health care at their own expense. It’s not illegal. Beyond that, every time a person goes to another jurisdiction for surgery, the line shortens for those who are waiting in their home province.

Is the situation ideal? No, but can you really blame somebody for taking advantage of an opportunity to improve their health, reduce their pain and restore their mobility, at their own expense?

Ironically, Milburn may be better off staying in Manitoba and travelling to Alberta for the surgery she needs than moving to Alberta for it. It would likely cost her less than the real estate fees, legal fees and moving costs she would incur by moving to Alberta and she might be pain-free by Christmas.

It’s a ridiculous reality but that’s the state of health care in Canada these days.

Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon. deverynrossletters@gmail.com X: @deverynross