By Cheryl Jahn

Orthopaedic surgeon waitlist ballooning

Mar 25, 2022 | 9:33 AM

PRINCE GEORGE – Operating rooms in every BC hospital have been catching up with surgeries that have been cancelled as a result of the pandemic. The Health Ministry says it has caught up on all the cancelled surgeries.

But the BC Orthopaedic Association says that is not the case for elective surgeries.

“It’s labelled as elective but it doesn’t mean it’s unimportant,” says Cassandra Lane Dielwart, President-Elect of the BC Orthopaedic Association. “They might come in early on the waitlist using a cane and using some Tylenol. But by the time they get to you, they’re on a walker, some people in a wheelchair, some people are using narcotics, Fentynal patches on elderly folks. This is not okay.” For instance, local orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Michael Moran has 300 people on his surgical waitlist, but since September only has had access to the operating room fewer than two days per month. Of all the orthopaedic surgeons that operate out of University Hospital of Northern BC, the waitlist for orthopaedics balloons to 1,600 patients on a waitlist. Part of the problem is the state of this hospital.

“The operating rooms at UHNBC are not at 21st Century levels,” says Health Minister Adrian Dix, “And this, to a degree, affects the surgeries we can do, but also the number of surgeries we can do and our ability to recruit people to that hospital.”

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The Association claims orthopaedic surgeons are often left out of the discussion and that’s the first step to mending the problem.

“I think you have to sit down with all of the players. You have to sit down with the ministry, the leads of all the surgical specialities, the leads anesthesiology to understand what the situation really is.”

The pandemic highlighted the problems and, in the case of UHNBC, the operating rooms are antiquated.

“As orthopaedic surgeons and surgeons in general, we need tools to do our profession,” says Lane Dielwart. “And our tools are well-functioning, well-equipped operating rooms that are well-staffed. And that’s how to get surgeries done. If you lose anything along those lines, the efficiency starts to go down.”

Prince George has been promised a new surgical tower and Minister Dix assures it is still on the table.

“UHNBC is a very important project, one I’ve been working very hard on. We’ve been working very on the business plan now. It’s really fundamentally different from the other projects we have in Northern BC.”