HIS ONLY GAME: WAITING
Young hockey player’s case classed as ‘elective,’ not emergency
Connor Cose, 15, has been waiting since last December for hip surgery at CHEO. But it won’t likely happen until at least November — and his hockey dreams are over.
When Connor Cose-Manuel turned up ice with the puck last year during a hockey game with the ‘AA’ Nepean Raiders, he felt something in his right hip go “pop.” He completed a pass and limped to the bench, worried.
Cose-Manuel has yet to return to the ice. In fact, the 15-year-old Barrhaven youth has been in pain ever since that Dec. 16 game as he continues to wait for corrective hip surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
He still does not have a date for the operation to repair what has been diagnosed as a hip impingement — a condition in which extra bone growth interferes with the smooth movement of the joint.
“I’ve gone from being active seven days a week — working out, hockey — to zero,” Cose-Manuel said Monday. “It’s affected pretty much everything.”
He’s diabetic, and the lack of activity has made his blood sugar levels more difficult to control, while in school the pain medication he requires makes it hard to concentrate.
Cose-Manuel is not even thinking about a return to competitive hockey: He just wants to have his surgery so that he can get on with his life without limping around, medicated and in pain.
His mother, Susan, has appealed to politicians and health care officials in an attempt to speed her son’s surgery without success.
“He’s my healthy kid who I can’t fix,” she said.
“If he had been in a car accident, he’d have surgery the next day. But with this, no . ... He can’t walk up to his room at night: He has to hold onto the railing.
“He’s 15 and he walks like a 90-year-old.”
CHEO spokesman Paddy Moore said the problem boils down to provincial funding. The hospital’s eight operating rooms are now working at full capacity (94 per cent) given that some time must be reserved for emergency surgeries.
The provincial target for efficiency is 90 per cent and CHEO’s utilization rate is among the highest in Ontario. CHEO surgeons conduct almost 8,000 operations a year.
“CHEO is now at a point where we have maximized the use of available resources and any reduction in wait times will have to come from additional investment,” he said.
More provincial funding, he said, would allow CHEO to staff its ORs for longer periods of time and do more cases.
The current situation means that specialists such as Cose-Manuel’s pediatric orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Sasha Carsen, have limited access to the hospital’s operating rooms.
“If there was more OR time available, I would certainly be able to make use of that. From a surgeon’s perspective, I feel I’m being underutilized,” Carsen said in an interview Monday.
Cose-Manuel will limp back to St. Joseph High School in Barrhaven next month with no definitive idea of when his surgery will take place. The Grade 10 student has been told to expect the operation in November or December.
“Unfortunately, his is a typical case for that condition,” said Carsen, who said most of his pediatric patients wait nine months for arthroscopic hip surgery.
Cose-Manuel’s operation is considered “elective” care, and involves a highly specialized form of minimally invasive surgery, which is in high demand.
“Our system deals with emergencies really well, but it becomes more challenging with elective care,” Carsen said.
Cose-Manuel played competitive hockey for the past nine years and never experienced a hip problem until December, when his issue flared.
Immediately after the game, he went to Queensway-Carleton Hospital. The family consulted with doctors at the Carleton Sport Medicine Clinic and CHEO before receiving a definitive diagnosis in January: femoroacetabular impingement (FAI).
The condition — it’s sometimes called a bone spur — is painful since it means the hip cannot function smoothly; movement damages cartilage and soft tissue inside the joint.
The condition is often seen in hockey players and only recently became treatable in Ottawa with arthroscopic rather than open surgery.
Cose-Manuel is anxious to get the surgery done so that he can begin the six-month recovery process and return to gym class, go-kart racing and other activities. Doctors have told him he won’t be able to play competitive hockey again.
“Waiting is hard,” he said.