N.L. aims to reduce surgery wait-list by expanding orthopedics travel program to Carbonear

Newfoundland and Labrador's travelling orthopedics program is expanding with the eventual goal of adding 300 procedures a year and reducing the province's long waiting list for foot surgery.

The provincial government announced Tuesday morning that the program, which began earlier this year with a team of doctors travelling to St. Anthony, is expanding to Carbonear General Hospital on Sept. 25.

Dr. William Moores, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services' divisional head of orthopedics, said the wait-list in the health authority's Eastern region was around 2,150 people as of two weeks ago.

"This is not something that any province — Newfoundland is no different — can eliminate in a six-month or one-year span," Moores said.

While St. Anthony has the capacity to accommodate about 140 surgeries annually, Health Minister Tom Osborne said Tuesday that Carbonear will add about 200-300 more, although only about 150 are expected in the first year.

Moores said the nearly additional annual surgeries will help address the backlog problem, which has worsened since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the strain it has put on the provincial health-care system.

"Three hundred is not an insignificant dent into that," he said.

Premier Andrew Furey said Tuesday the provincial government has been considering Carbonear for months as a place to expand the program.

"We have teased this out in the past, with respect to Carbonear being an alternative site to do joint replacements, he said.

Between January and July 76 surgeries were performed by a team of surgeons travelling to St. Anthony on patients who would otherwise have had to wait to get their surgery in St. John's, adding to the already lengthy wait-list for the concentrated population on the northeast Avalon Peninsula.

Moores said the program's next initiative will aim to reduce the wait-list even more.

"The re-establishment of the OR in the Janeway and transferring some of the women's health resources there, which is where a lot of the surgeries are already performed, allows more time at St. Clare's." 

Osborne also hinted Tuesday that Gander is "next on the list for orthopedics."

The health minister wouldn't provide any details about that plan but said an announcement will be coming within the next two weeks.