Retiree in agony after two-year surgery wait
Patient ‘living on painkillers’ after operation delayed
"We understand and sympathise with people who are waiting for surgery." Te Whatu Ora a Toi COO Bronwyn Anstis
Keith Silby describes his pain as like “someone bloody twisting a knife in my back” after waiting more than two years for surgery.
The 74-year-old Mount Maunganui retiree says he has been “living on painkillers” as he waits for a back operation at Tauranga Hospital.
He loves dancing and fishing but some days he can “hardly walk” and is in “agony” when he drives for long distances.
He shared his story after the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend reported on November 5 that the number of patients waiting for elective surgery at Tauranga Hospital had soared from 12 to almost 2000 in five years.
Among those waiting were Tauranga resident Tim Mcmahon who struggled to get out of bed because of the pain in his hip and O¯ mokoroa mother Louise Roberts who said she was in “chronic pain” and could no longer work fulltime.
Te Whatu Ora Hauora a Toi Bay of Plenty said it sympathised with people waiting for surgery and was “working hard” to increase the number of patients being seen following a long period of high demand combined with shortages and interruptions.
Silby said he needed surgery because one disc in his back had “gone completely”.
“I ruptured it years ago and it just slowly disappeared, you might say — that’s the easiest way of putting it.”
He said was told more than two years ago he needed an operation. In March, he said he was given a pre-operation kit and told he would have surgery in between three weeks and three months.
“And it hasn’t happened.”
Eight months later, Silby still does not have a scheduled date for elective surgery. He said some days he would go to the hot pools because he was getting unfit.
“My strength is going down as well… I used to be able to lift things… well, I can’t lift bugger all now.”
Silby said he also enjoyed playing his guitar and gardening.
“But I can’t do a lot of digging or anything like that.”
Silby said he could still drive but he wore a back brace, as long distances were painful.
“I went over to Hamilton the other day . . . and by the time I got there and back I was in agony.”
He tried to visit his son in Auckland now and again “but it just kills me to drive up there”.
He hoped that after the surgery, “I’ll get back to doing normal things”.
The long wait had made him feel “very frustrated”.
“We had a holiday planned to go down south and when they said it’d be between three weeks and three months, well, we put that off.”
Bronwyn Anstis, chief operating officer of Health NZ’S Te Whatu Ora Hauora a Toi Bay of Plenty — formerly the district health board — said there were 34 patients on the spinal treatment waitlist, of which seven had a date for surgery within six months.
Te Whatu Ora anticipated all patients would have treatment within eight months.
“We understand and sympathise with people who are waiting for surgery. The current demand on our hospitals and health services is high, but we are working hard to increase the number of patients being seen and the speed at which they are seen.”
Anstis acknowledged the efforts of its staff working to ensure the
best care possible was provided to patients amid ongoing pressures on the system. She said it was implementing a wide range of initiatives to address immediate pressures, and working on longerterm ways to ensure a sustainable health workforce.
Following the release of the Planned Care Taskforce’s Reset and Restore Plan last month, Te Whatu Ora’s hospital and specialist service team had been working with regional and local areas on
plans to reduce waitlists.
“Good progress is being made to reduce the waitlist of those people who have been waiting longer than 365 days for treatment.”
Most recent data showed, nationally, 1622 patients, who had been waiting the longest for treatment, had been scheduled, she said.
Anstis said the hospital and specialists team was working on initiatives to help reduce planned care waitlists. One was working with private providers to outsource people who had been waiting a long time for orthopaedic surgery.
Delivering the 101 recommendations from the taskforce was a multi-year programme of work and was an opportunity to “futureproof” the planned care health system, she said.
Anstis said population growth, Covid-19, a “diminished” workforce, industrial action and “high acute demand” had led to elective surgery backlogs. With the population growing “significantly” in recent years, particularly older groups, this had increased demand for planned and acute care.
Acute and cancer surgery growth, combined with growth in demand for acute medical care, put “significant pressure” on hospital beds, with Tauranga and Whakata¯ne hospitals operating at 95 to 100 per cent of bed capacity “most of the time. On days when the hospital is full we, unfortunately, have to resort to cancelling planned care surgery.”
Anstis said Covid meant planned care was paused during outbreak peaks.
From May 2021, RSV led to “several months of unusually high staff sickness” reducing its capacity for non-urgent care. The same had occurred with Covid.
Anstis said the international supply of healthcare professionals had slowed from late 2020 to “virtually none ”, leading to more clinical staff vacancies.
The organisation had also seen “an unusual amount of industrial action by clinical staff groups” since 2019, sometimes involving all work — apart from acute and cancer — being stopped for several days.
Additionally, the key to having beds available was the “timely transfer” of care from the hospital to home or residential care.
Workforce shortages in residential and home-based care services had also added difficulty in discharging patients, resulting in undue time in hospital for some older patients.
She said the hospital had been working on this in recent years, with changes in models of care developing and planning to increase hospital capacity.
It had been expanding its integrated operations centre teams, and Anstis said Tauranga Hospital was “one of the most productive in the country for its size”.