'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
Stamp prices rise for the third time in five years amid financial woes for Canada Post
Canada Post is increasing stamp prices for the third time since 2019, a move the Crown corporation says is a "reality" of its sales-based revenue structure.
BREAKING Winnipeg man admits to killing four women, claims he's not criminally responsible
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women in Winnipeg, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
Trudeau Liberals to unveil new bill Monday aimed at countering foreign interference
Democratic Institutions Minister Dominic LeBlanc will be tabling legislation on Monday aimed at countering foreign interference in Canada. Federal officials have scheduled a technical briefing on the incoming bill for Monday afternoon.
WATCH Avian flu: Risk to humans grows as outbreaks spread, warns expert
H5N1 or avian flu is decimating wildlife around the world and is now spreading among cattle in the United States, sparking concerns about 'pandemic potential' for humans. Now a health expert is urging Canada to scale up surveillance north of the border.
Human remains were found at a former Hitler base, but decay prevents determining the cause of death
Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during the Second World War because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.
Italy's white-collar mafia is making a business killing
Italy's mafia rarely dirties its hands with blood these days. Extortion rackets have gone out of fashion and murders are largely frowned upon by the godfathers.
Ontario MPP asked again to leave Ontario legislature over keffiyeh, Speaker loosens ban
An Ontario MPP was asked again to leave the Ontario legislature on Monday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that was banned by the Speaker last month due to its political symbolism.
The story of how a B.C. man found his birth mother
After his adopted parents died, Dave Rogers set out to learn more about his birth mother. DNA results and a little help from friendly strangers would put him on a path to a small town in England.
Trump fined US$1,000 for gag order violation in hush money case as judge warns of possible jail time
The judge presiding over Donald Trump's hush money trial fined him US$1,000 on Monday for violating his gag order once again and sternly warned the former president that additional violations could result in jail time.