Surgical backlog in region hits 14,000 cases

Fourteen thousand patients across the Champlain region, which includes Ottawa, have had surgeries delayed since the beginning of the pandemic, a backlog that hospitals and surgical teams are trying to reduce on top of ongoing procedures.

“Hospitals from across the Champlain region are working together to reduce wait times and address the backlog of surgeries as safely as possible,” the hospitals said in a statement. Currently, care teams are reviewing each case and will reschedule patients in order of priority based on their needs.

But a recent study suggests clearing surgical backlogs in Ottawa and across the province will not be done quickly or easily. And the provincial NDP says it will require more funding and more staff.

When the pandemic lockdown began last fall, hospitals throughout Ontario began clearing room for a potentially overwhelming influx of patients in need of acute and intensive care. To do that, tens of thousands of non-urgent surgeries — including joint replacements, eye surgery, some cancer surgeries and other procedures — were put on hold.

That action to prepare for the pandemic had an unprecedented effect on surgical care in the province, wrote the authors of a study published this month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The authors estimated the backlog created between March 15, when the first surgeries were cancelled, and June 13, totalled nearly 150,000 provincewide. Clearing that backlog, wrote the authors, will take about 18 months, and will only be accomplished with innovation and more resources.

“Health systems and surgical leaders cannot get back to business as usual, but rather must employ innovative system-based solutions to provide patients with timely surgical care and prepare for future COVID-19 waves,” the authors wrote.

They also noted that: “Without any increases in resources to support surge activity, incoming new cases will lead to a subsequent backlog.”

The researchers found there were 38 per cent fewer cancer surgeries, 42 per cent fewer cardiac surgeries, 73 per cent fewer vascular surgeries, 81 per cent fewer transplant surgeries, 94 per cent fewer pediatric surgeries and 96 per cent fewer other adult surgeries in April 2020 compared with April 2019 in Ontario.

In the Champlain region, which includes most of Eastern Ontario, hospitals have maximized bed capacity and the use of operating rooms in recent months to catch up on postponed surgeries.

“While urgent and emergency surgeries continue, as they did throughout the spring and early summer, over 14,000 patients had surgeries delayed throughout the region because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the hospitals said in a statement. “Across the region, hospitals are seeking to reduce the impact of these delays.”

Local hospitals say surgical capacity has increased in recent months “to ensure access for those with the most pressing and critical surgical illnesses.”

The hospitals say they are now adding more capacity for other procedures and are working with the province “to determine other opportunities by which further capacity can be added to address the ongoing backlog of surgical activity.”

That is something the Ontario New Democratic Party says the province needs a strategy to address. At Queen's Park this week, NDP health critic France Gélinas said a provincial strategy to minimize the impact on surgical wait times would have allowed some scheduled surgeries to continue during the first wave of COVID -19.

“Hospitals need more funding and more staff, more nursing, lab and diagnostic hours and more cleaners to tackle the backlog that's built up, along with an urgent second-wave plan to make sure patients still waiting in pain and worry aren't devastated by more delays,” Gélinas said.

In an interview, the MPP for Nicklebelt said work to reduce backlogs in Sudbury has already encountered serious roadblocks. Last week, she said, Sudbury's regional hospital, Health Sciences North, had to cancel surgeries that had been rescheduled from last spring when the hospital reached more than 100-per-cent capacity.

“We already had long lists for many procedures and now lists could be taking years,” she said. “We could change things and do things a whole lot better.”

Hospitals across Ontario, which lowered occupancy rates dramatically during the first wave of COVID -19, are now seeing beds fill up as a second wave approaches, leaving less wiggle room to reduce backlogs and deal with ongoing non-pandemic surgical needs. epayne@postmedia.com