Man flushes ‘three grand down the toilet’ as surgery cancelled

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This article was published 21/12/2022 (734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Thompson man is out roughly $3,000 in flights, hotel costs and lost wages after his surgery in Winnipeg was unexpectedly cancelled in early December.

Leon Gillis, 59, flew to the city in advance of his Dec. 6 scheduled surgery. He waited nearly five hours in a hospital gown before being informed there was no bed available post-surgery, so the operation was cancelled and he’d have to get dressed and go home.

It was one of seven surgeries cancelled that day because of a lack of capacity at Grace Hospital, a Winnipeg Regional Health Authority spokesman said.

In an interview Wednesday with the Free Press, Gillis says hospital staff tried to sympathize but it was like salt in a wound.

“She said to me, ‘We know how you feel, Mr. Gillis.’ Really? Why don’t you flush two or three grand down the toilet and tell me how you feel,” Gillis said over the phone from his home in Thompson, nearly 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

Gillis contacted his surgeon’s office after being sent back to his hotel on Dec. 6, and was told he will have to wait until late January or February for surgery.

“I’m discouraged,” the mine worker and former competitive hockey player said. His hip replacement still hasn’t been rescheduled.

Same-day surgery cancellations are a reality for roughly 200 Manitobans each month.

Between six and seven per cent of elective surgeries were postponed on the same day they were scheduled, for various reasons, from September through November, a WRHA spokesperson said. Of more than 3,600 surgeries scheduled last month, 6.5 per cent were postponed.

(Those numbers don’t include surgeries performed at Health Sciences Centre, Misericordia or St. Boniface obstetrics or any surgeries performed in endoscopy suites or procedure rooms, the WRHA stated.)

“Having to reschedule a surgery is upsetting and is always viewed as a last resort. Our teams work very hard to complete all surgeries, and whenever there is no safe choice but to reschedule, make every effort to provide as much notice as possible,” the spokesperson said.

“Nevertheless, same-day postponements of an elective or non-urgent scheduled surgery are a reality in any health-care system, and are due to several factors. This would include staffing levels, the availability of beds on inpatient units, other procedures taking longer than expected, patient fitness and an unexpected surge in emergency surgeries — which was recently the case at the Grace Hospital.

“Seven surgeries were cancelled on Dec. 6 due to capacity issues. Surgeries were not cancelled due to the availability of recovery room beds.”

Gillis had waited for a surgery consultation for more than a year, saying constant intense pain required potent painkillers and led to him being prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills.

He and his wife Ellen Dale had been considering going out of province to get him a hip replacement when they finally got in to see a Winnipeg surgeon. After that appointment in November, Gillis was booked in for surgery within a month to replace his left hip. (He had his right hip replaced in 2019.)

The procedure was scheduled quickly because X-rays showed “bone-on-bone” contact, with an advanced form of arthritis, he said.

“They said, we will expedite you, this is serious.”

Having the surgery scheduled gave him hope the pain would end soon, he said.

He filed all the required paperwork to take time off work to recover. Gillis and Dale boarded their dog, flew to Winnipeg a day early, and rented a car to make sure they could check in at the hospital by 6 a.m.

“We dotted every I, we crossed every T,” Dale said. “Nobody told us that you might not get your surgery.”

Dale sent a letter this week detailing her husband’s experience to Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon.

In a statement to the Free Press, the health minister’s office confirmed it is reviewing the letter.

The statement from a government spokesperson did not directly answer questions about how the province is responding to same-day cancellations caused by a lack of hospital capacity, nor about how this issue affects the work of the provincial surgical backlog task force.

“All surgeries continue to be prioritized by medical experts based on medical need and those deemed emergent and urgent continue to be done. Cancer surgeries are also being prioritized, with the rare postponement urgently rebooked. WRHA manages surgical resource capacity with priority given to patients with the most acute surgical care needs,” the spokesperson stated.

An influx of emergency patients who needed surgery at Grace on Dec. 16 forced the cancellation of all but one elective surgery scheduled that day. David Gaboury of Winnipeg, a prostate cancer patient, was one of those sent home. His procedure was rescheduled for this week, after he spoke publicly about the experience.

Gillis said the cancellations cause a whole host of problems for those who don’t have access to major surgery close to home.

“Especially for northern patients, just be aware what could happen, because it’s costly if you shell out the money and then you’re basically turned away at the last minute.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca