N.S. surgery backlog may take 2 years to clear after COVID cancellations

It will take more than two years to clear a backlog of hip and knee replacement surgeries in Nova Scotia created, in part, by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to newly released records.

By September 2021, 78 per cent of the surgical backlog had been completed and the remaining procedures were rescheduled or in the process of being rebooked, according to a briefing package prepared for the Minister of Health and Wellness. CBC News obtained it through an access-to-information request.

At the beginning of the summer, only 43 per cent of surgeries had been carried out, rescheduled or removed from the wait list.

The wait for many surgeries in Nova Scotia is still much longer than national benchmarks, but the records show that for many patients, the wait will still be long, even for "priority procedures."

Though the national goal for cancer care is a 10-day wait, the briefing note described the following waits for various types of surgeries:

It said it's taking about 251 days to complete cataract surgery, compared to the desired 112 days (16 weeks).

The benchmark to complete knee and hip replacements is 180 days, but patients in Nova Scotia are waiting an average of 510 days for a hip replacement and 619 for a knee replacement. The records state $15 million is going toward increasing "orthopedic support for hip and knee surgeries" to try to align the wait times with the national benchmark.

Cindy Connolly, a director at the Nova Scotia Health Perioperative (Surgical) Services Network, said in a statement to CBC that it's a priority for the health authority to complete more surgeries and work is underway to figure out the "best approaches to manage our backlog of surgical cases and meet wait time targets."

Though the first and third waves of the pandemic impacted surgeries the most, Nova Scotia Health said there have also been reductions last summer into the fall "due to staffing challenges and higher than usual demands for hospital beds," said Connolly.

"These are fairly common pressures which periodically affected surgical capacity pre-COVID-19 and unfortunately many of these issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic," her statement said. 

Data compiled by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows that after the start of the pandemic, the average number of surgeries performed in Nova Scotia fell by about 1,100 a month, or 14 per cent compared to the 2019 monthly average. Nationally, there was an 18 per cent drop in surgeries.

In Nova Scotia during the pandemic, in comparison to 2019, there were on average about:

There were an average of 6,568 procedures completed a month between March 2020 and June 2021, compared to 7,628 in 2019.

During the first wave of the pandemic — between March and June of 2020 — hospitals expected lots of COVID-19 patients and cancelled procedures to make room.