I have written to Christy Clark and Terry Lake regarding our dissatisfaction with the surgical wait list in the Okanagan.
My husband was put on a wait list for hip surgery in October 2013 and told it should be about 18 months, about April of this year. In the spring, the hospital phoned to say it will probably be winter. A Ms. Downey, writing for Sharon Stewart, who is executive director of some department in the health ministry, with copies to Clark and Lake (so maybe they saw my letter?), replied. Our concerns relate to when you have patients, such as my husband, waiting for this length of time for surgery and their mobility becomes so severely compromised, the rehabilitation and ensuing costs of that increase, not to mention the severe effect on his general health because of this lack of mobility.
Her answer to wait lists was, “A patient’s priority for surgery is determined by the surgeon; each surgeon manages his or her own wait list and schedules surgeries according to their patients’ medical urgency, the length of time spent on the wait list, and the amount of time the surgeon is allocated in the operating rooms. Operating room time is contingent on a number of factors, including the availability of medical professionals, equipment, medication, and bed space. Shortages in any of these areas can impact operating room availability and wait times.”
So basically, it is the surgeon’s responsibility? I don’t think so. How can a surgeon operate if he does not get operating room time, or there are no beds for surgical patients available? We have two new floors going into the Vernon hospital and there are no surgical beds being made available.
Ms. Downey suggested my husband go back to his doctor to get his condition upgraded or get on a cancellation list. Really!
My husband has been back to his doctor numerous times and the doctor is as frustrated as he is. Of course my husband has deteriorated and so has everyone on the list. He is not unique. So how does a doctor decide who is the worst? They are all bad. And the cancellation list, the surgeries that get cancelled because of no beds.
I have phoned seven different orthopaedic surgeons in the Lower Mainland and they all say that yes they will take my husband as a patient and he will go on their wait list. Their wait list is six to eight months. That is the length of time he has left now.
If we had known the shorter wait lists at the time he was told he needed surgery, we would have put him on one of those lists and he would have had his surgery by now.
Why do we have to go out of the area that we live in to insure that we get the health care coverage that the rest of the province gets?
We pay the same amount for this coverage, but are made to wait over double to triple the length of time. I can see the wait times at www.health.gov.bc.ca and I cannot see how that information will help me. They are certainly not accurate for this health authority or are these wait times, from the time the patient is put on a wait list or are they from the time they are actually given a date for the surgery, as I have been told they are? Regardless, why are the wait times in the Okanagan the longest in the province? We are not in the tax bracket to go out of the country for this surgery, and I wonder why we would have to even consider it. We have paid taxes and health care to this province for most of our life and I feel that the surgical health care we get in the Okanagan is atrocious. s
We live off the infamous Westside Road and are sort of caught in the middle for representation. Eric Foster represents the Vernon area, which is the area we go to for our basic needs, but Ms. Clark is our MLA.
Therefore, I am sending her a copy of this as well. I realize I cannot obtain an immediate solution to this problem, but for a government who professes to have accountability in their ministries and to their constituents, I feel there has to be some direction that we could have to help provide a solution to our problem.
Obviously, none of my comments are going to make any difference to my husband’s situation. The wait lists will continue and my husband will continue to become more and more debilitated and his quality of life will degenerate more and more.
The only voice we have is our vote and I truly hope that with the increasing number of seniors that are in this province and the more surgeries that are required and delayed, these seniors will see a correlation between who is government and what is happening with the health care system.
Donnalee Huey
Vernon
