'I feel forgotten': Patients in Ontario wait for surgeries postponed due to COVID-19
The waiting has become excruciating for Shelley Brownlee and her partner, Jonathan Clow.
Brownlee, who's been diagnosed with a form of cancer in her abdomen, has been waiting months to undergo surgery at a hospital in Toronto. Her doctor said he had hoped to proceed with it next month but the Ontario government's pause on all non-urgent surgeries and procedures amid soaring COVID-19 cases means she'll likely have to hang on a bit longer.
"This is excruciating waiting, not having an endpoint so we know for sure she'll be able to get the surgery, and knowing that as time goes by, the options available to the surgeon when he's doing the surgery become less," said Clow, who detailed Brownlee's situation as she wasn't up for an interview.
"She's only 40 years old and she has kids and it's excruciating."
Compounding the couple's frustration is the fact that the province is allowing businesses shuttered earlier this month to reopen with capacity limits on Monday while maintaining the pause on non-urgent surgeries.
"It's infuriating, because the implication to me is that business and the economy is more important than people's lives," Clow said.
Brownlee started experiencing abdominal pain last January and decided to get checked out. After several tests, a doctor told her she didn't have cancer but needed to have an ovarian cyst removed, Clow said. When she went in for that procedure last June, Clow said the medical team realized "there was indeed cancer and it had spread throughout her abdomen."
That cancer can't be treated by chemotherapy and requires surgery to "remove everything in her abdomen that she doesn't need," Clow said.
"It'll probably involve a full hysterectomy, could involve parts of her large bowel. And unfortunately, if it's growing on her small bowel, there's only so much that they can remove," he said. "The longer we wait, the more opportunity there is for this ... to seed in the small bowel, which would worsen her prognosis."
The president of the Ontario Medical Association said the pandemic has created a backlog of nearly 20 million health-care services, based on provincial data from March 2020 to September 2021.
Dr. Adam Kassam said those services could include hip or knee replacements, cataract surgeries, colonoscopies, mammograms that screen for certain types of cancers, as well as primary, tertiary and mental health services.
"It runs the gamut across our health system and unfortunately, has been exacerbated as a result of the most recent wave of Omicron and the Directive 2 that the health-care system is currently under," Kassam said.
Toronto resident Akbar Jassani injured his knee in September while playing soccer -- a sport that he said provided a form of stress relief during the pandemic -- tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus.
Jassani was scheduled to have knee surgery on Jan. 17, but it's been postponed indefinitely. Now, with no surgery date in sight, he said mental fatigue has taken over.
"What's frustrating is that (there are) days where I can't walk because there's so much pain," he said.
Jassani acknowledged that small businesses are suffering, but questioned the reasoning behind reopening businesses while COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU counts remain high.
Last week, during a press conference about Ontario's reopening plan, Health Minister Christine Elliott said the government made a "difficult decision" earlier this month to pause non-urgent surgeries in order to preserve critical care and human resource capacity at hospitals. The province placed a similar pause on non-urgent surgeries earlier in the pandemic.
"If people do have a life-threatening condition, of course they will still receive the care that they need, but we know that many people are upset and frustrated at having their surgeries pushed off yet again," Elliott said.
"We don't expect the peak of the admissions to ICU to happen until about mid-February ... so as soon as we can see that the numbers are going down both in terms of admissions to hospital and in terms of intensive care admissions, then we'll be able to get back on track with those surgeries and procedures."
Emma Saunders, 17, has been waiting months for surgery on her left hand, which she injured while horseback riding.
As time has progressed, Saunders said a joint in her hand "fused itself shut" and she was told a more "invasive" surgery was needed to mend her hand. She's now waiting for a vascularized joint transfer from her foot to her hand, but said it's been rescheduled twice in the last two months.
"It's frustrating listening to the government announce that concert venues and restaurants can open while we're still waiting," she said. "I feel forgotten by the government when listening to those announcements."
The backlog of health-care services has grown "quite substantially" during the pandemic, but backlogs and wait-lists have been an issue for decades, Kassam said. He called it the result of "chronic underfunding" of the health-care system for many years under various governments.
The Ontario Medical Association has developed a set of recommendations for the province to help clear the backlog.
They include carrying out certain surgeries and procedures in community-based specialty clinics to help ease the load on hospitals, providing "adequate" health-care funding from all levels of government, and ensuring sufficient health-care staffing resources to meet Ontario's needs.
In the meantime, Kassam said physicians have a clear message for patients.
"Please reach out to your family doctor, please reach out to your primary care provider, please reach out to the physicians that you have established relationships with to ensure that you can get the care that you need."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2022.
------
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Former homicide detective explains how police will investigate shooting outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
Stormy Daniels describes meeting Trump during occasionally graphic testimony in hush money trial
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
Alcohol believed to be a factor in boating incident after 2 men die: N.S. RCMP
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
Northern Ont. woman makes 'eggstraordinary' find
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, who played spirited cheerleader Patty Simcox in 'Grease,' dead at 72
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Jeremy Skibicki has 'uphill battle' to prove he's not criminally responsible in Winnipeg killings: legal analysts
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
Bye-bye bag fee: Calgary repeals single-use bylaw
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
CFL suspends Argos QB Chad Kelly at least nine games following investigation
The CFL suspended Toronto Argonauts quarterback Chad Kelly for at least nine regular-season games Tuesday following its investigation into a lawsuit filed by a former strength-and-conditioning coach against both the player and club.