‘Living in pain’: Canadians travel across the world to avoid surgery backlog

A surgery backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has steered Canadians thousands of miles away from home to get life changing procedures done without the wait.

A surgery backlog exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic has steered some Canadians thousands of miles away from home to get life-changing procedures done without the wait.

“I had to do something,” Patricia Rush, 60, who travelled from her home in Alberta to Lithuania for a hip replacement, told Global News.

After being sent for an MRI in May of 2020, Rush was told she had a fibril tear in her hip with a three-quarter cyst inside.

“I was bone on bone in my hip,” she said. “The pain was excruciating. When I would walk a certain way I would get a sharp pain in my leg.”

To get around, Rush used a walker.

“My life was cut to next to nothing because I was in so much pain,” she said. “What do people do when they’re in this kind of pain? They must be suicidal and depressed.”

Before taking matters into her own hands, Rush visited a hip and knee clinic in Alberta where she was told the wait time would be 15 months for surgery.

Now three years later, Rush has yet to hear back from them.