Alberta surgical patients may wait months for care after COVID-19 delays

AHS has been able to increase surgical capacity once again but the system is not yet operating at full capacity and surgeries continue to be postponed each week.

Leah Crawford was scheduled to have a hysterectomy on Sept. 15, but five days before her surgery, the Calgary woman learned it had been cancelled. Her procedure has since been re-scheduled for the end of January.

“It’s just more of having to live with the pain,” Crawford said. “Thankfully, my pain is mostly manageable but I can’t even imagine some of the other people who have been cancelled or postponed and what they’re going through.”

According to Alberta Health Services, more than 15,000 patients have had their surgeries cancelled or postponed since August.

A surge of COVID-19 patients during the province’s punishing fourth wave forced AHS to redeploy resources away from operating rooms in order to expand intensive care units across the province.

With COVID-19 patient numbers declining, AHS has been able to increase surgical capacity once again but the system is not yet operating at full capacity and surgeries continue to be postponed each week.

“Last week, approximately 1,500 surgeries were postponed, which is an improvement on previous weeks during the fourth wave when we were delaying about 2,000 surgeries a week,” AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson said in an emailed statement to Global News. “Normal surgical volume is about 5,000 surgeries a week.”

Williamson says cancer surgeries are being prioritized but some cancer surgeons expect it will be some time before all delayed surgeries are completed.

“I’m still operating only a fraction of the time I normally operate so I anticipate it will take months before we’re able to work through the backlog,” said Dr. Todd McMullen, a cancer surgeon at Edmonton’s University of Alberta Hospital.