Surgery task force update expected Wednesday

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This article was published 27/03/2022 (960 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Anticipation is building for the province’s diagnostic and surgical recovery task force to deliver promised care for more than 100,000 Manitobans languishing on wait lists, now that a byelection gag has been removed.

Task force chairman Dr. Peter MacDonald and Health Minister Audrey Gordon are expected Wednesday to update Manitobans on plans to whittle down the growing backlog.

It will be the task force’s first public address in 10 weeks.

Mandated monthly updates were mostly put on pause during the recent Fort Whyte byelection, after a provincial committee warned the Progressive Conservative government substantive announcements would violate the Elections Financing Act.

“We shared with the committee everything that we wanted to produce in the public update and we were limited to what was placed on the task force’s website,” Gordon told reporters on the eve of the March 22 vote that elected PC candidate Ibrahim (Obby) Khan to the seat formerly held by premier Brian Pallister.

However, in the days since the byelection concluded, the province has remained tight-lipped on its previously announced programs, including a pilot project to send Manitoba spinal surgery patients to Sanford Health in Fargo, N.D.

To date, seven such patients have received surgery at the private hospital and the pilot phase of the program is now complete, Sanford Health Fargo vice-president Brittany Sachdeva said in a statement to the Free Press. Another 14 were being processed for surgery, as of March 22.

When asked by the Free Press, a spokesman for Gordon’s office said progress made on the Fargo agreement and other task force initiatives would not be shared in advance of the scheduled update.

On Monday, at an event to mark the opening of a new emergency medical services station in Portage la Prairie, Gordon told a Free Press reporter the task force appearance could not have happened any earlier.

“We couldn’t have done it after the byelection,” Gordon said, before climbing in a van to head back to Winnipeg. “The lead of the steering committee was out of town, and another physician who’s also one of the leads. We want to make sure that they’re there.

“They’re here this week, and we’re going to be doing it this week.”

Manitoba Association of Healthcare Professionals president Bob Moroz said the task force, Gordon and Premier Heather Stefanson should be feeling the pressure after weeks of relative quiet.

“Health care is far and away the most important issue to Manitobans right now,” Moroz said Monday.

“It’s my hope that government is going to start listening to people and making the right decisions and investments. That’s what we need and we need it a year ago.”

On March 25, the federal government announced $2 billion to help provincial health systems address surgical and diagnostic backlogs, to be distributed on a per capita basis.

Manitoba should direct that money into recruiting and retaining the diagnostic professionals needed to bring service levels above pre-pandemic baselines, Moroz said.

“There’s a lot of frustration out there that no matter how many times that they are asking and almost begging for help to increase staffing, it’s being ignored,” he said.

Gordon said Manitoba has not been told how much money it will receive from Ottawa, and would not speculate on how it would be spent. The province has already set aside $50 million to address the backlog, with $13.7 million spent or allocated to date.

Since the task force was announced in early December, the Tory government has come under repeated fire for failing to provide timely progress reports. The task force’s last public address was Jan. 19.

Earlier this month, Gordon told the Manitoba Legislative Assembly the task force would provide an update March 4, but no public availability was held.

Rather, a summary of current surgical volumes was posted to the government’s website. No new initiatives were announced while what little progress was made appeared to be thwarted by the Omicron surge.

Gordon was later accused of deliberately misleading the house by NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara though Speaker Myrna Driedger dismissed the allegation.

Physicians advocacy group Doctors Manitoba has estimated the backlog to include more than 167,000 cases, including 54,820 surgeries.

Former Swan River mayor Glen McKenzie is among the many Manitobans hoping for a date on the operating table.

He has been waiting for knee surgery for about two years after suffering a torn meniscus and living with osteoarthritis.

The 74-year-old said he is managing for now with a knee brace and pain killers, but feels for people whose ailments have deteriorated through the COVID-19 pandemic to a point where surgery is the only relief in sight.

McKenzie said he has accepted a prolonged wait to receive surgery is all but guaranteed, given the narrow range of options available to the task force to speed up delayed procedures in the short term.

“The hospitals are full. You can’t say: we’ll get more doctors and nurses — because they don’t grow on trees,” McKenzie said. “The system will gradually work through and I’ll get my turn, and I’m prepared to wait.

“To worry about how long it’s going to take is not going to make any difference,” he said. “It’s going to happen when the medical system has dealt with the backlog.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca