Surgeries Are Increasing In Northern Health
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PRINCE GEORGE – Northern Health says it has stepped up with two areas of surgeries that have been a chronic problem in the past. In 2017, Northern Health only met its hip replacement deadline of 182 days 57% of the time and its knee replacements within that deadline 36% of the time. That’s why, last April, Health Minister Adrian Dix was at University Hospital of Northern BC to announce a plan to improve those number by 12%.
And Northern Health says it’s working.
“We’re doing more hips and knee surgeries than we have in the past, quite a few more actually,” explains Steve Raper with Northern Health. “We do owe our surgeons and staff a lot of credit. They’re doing wonderful work, considering we’re challenged with space, there are older OR’s, but the surgeons and staff there have done a great job of getting more surgeries done.”
This is in response to a report that from the B.C. Anesthesiologists’ Society, which says 85,468 people were on a wait list for medically-necessary surgeries in 2017/18. And 41% of those failed to meet a provincially-driven benchmark deadline. It also says, since 2002, surgical waiting lists have increased by about three times the growth rate of the provincial population.
