Health care that worked

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2024 (473 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m sad for Roseanne Milburn (“Wait times force patient to flee the province”, Aug. 13) but not surprised that she and her husband have had to take things into their own hands to achieve some progress towards getting her knee replacements completed in a more timely fashion.

That it has come to her taking this drastic action speaks to the bureaucratic, silo-ridden gridlock in health care that has not changed, despite lofty promises from the current provincial government.

I was fortunate to have been placed on the waiting list for my knee replacement last summer.

Although I was 75, I was also healthy enough to be considered for the out-of-province surgery just before this program was cancelled and as a result I was able to have my procedure done in Kenora on Feb. 1.

Upon my return to Winnipeg, I immediately wrote our new health minister, thanking them and requesting face-to-face time to recount my overwhelmingly positive experience. I stated at the outset that I was not advocating for the return of the out-of-province program. I solely wanted them and their senior officials to consider the surgical protocols I so pleasantly experienced.

In return, I got a boiler-plate response thanking me for my comments … but no invitation to explain what that experience entailed.

I had day surgery. In by 11 a.m., I was dressed and walking with my walker up and down the hospital hallways and negotiating a flight of stairs with my cane just after 3 p.m. that same day! I was released and after staying in a nearby motel overnight, just to be sure I did not need further attention, my wife drove us home the next morning.

No overnight or three-day hospital stay, occupying bed-space or nursing time. I was able to immediately return to being able to do the exercises geared to fast recovery, and I was able to carry out after-surgery wound care and dressing changes.

“How come?” you must be asking.

A month prior to surgery I had to download an app called “SeamlessMD” from the Thunder Bay Regional Health orthopaedic department.

Every day, I had to log in, verify that I’d done my exercises via questionnaire and pay attention to pre-surgical preparations.

The app set up telephone appointment times for consults with the anesthesia team and the surgeon who would do my procedure. Any questions I had were immediately answered.

At surgery, I was given a nerve-block portable catheter (bottle secured by a neck strap), with its line inserted into my thigh, along with the standard local anesthetic and relaxers.

Post surgery, my portable catheter dispensed nerve-block at 5 ml per hour for the next 60 hours while I went about reclaiming my life with little or no pain! The “SeamlessMD” app provided videos on how to safely remove the catheter line when the nerve agent was done.

It also tracked my progress daily for the next 30 days, asking about pain, mobility targets, exercise regimes and emotional state.

If I had questions, a nurse-practitioner would return a call the same day! Similarly, if I had concerns about the wound site, I could upload a photo and the surgeon would get back to me almost immediately.

The result of this new way of doing things was that I achieved mobility (bend and extension) targets four to six weeks ahead of normal!

I’ve since met with my orthopedic surgeon here for programming the replacement of my other knee and when I asked if the same protocols would be available here, he responded that day surgery could be accomplished but the portable nerve-block catheter was something neither Shared Health nor the health ministry would consider.

In other words, the six-figure bureaucrats would rather I spend three to five days in recovery, occupying bed space and nursing time dispensing opiates.

If my own experience is any guidepost, there appears to be no effort by Shared Health to learn from other jurisdictions, and no consideration of best practices that might point to new ways to alleviate these backlogs.

There also appears to be no desire to listen to real-world experience.

So, when Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara stands up for their latest photo-op, I wonder if they paid any attention to the delegation that went to Houston, Texas, to learn about best practices dealing with the homeless.

Perhaps they’d prefer we all move to Alberta.

Stewart Fay writes from Winnipeg.