Order of B.C. recipient paid $28,000 plus travel expenses for hip replacement surgery in Alberta
CTV
Not able to walk and on strong opioids for pain, Tracy Porteous decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She decided to pay for private hip replacement surgery in Calgary.
In her long career, Tracy Porteous was awarded the Order of B.C. and the Queens Diamond Jubilee medal for her work on gender-based violence. Recently retired, the 64-year-old’s nagging hip pain got drastically worse in July.
“I was on holidays on Salt Spring and suddenly I could not walk down the driveway even four steps,” said Porteous.
Already on the hip replacement wait list, she met with an orthopaedic surgeon at Rebalance MD clinic in Victoria.
“He said he could see that my femur head was partially collapsed, and he would do the surgery right away. So that was August 28.”
But weeks passed and Porteous didn’t get a surgery date. The CEO of Rebalance MD, Stefan Fletcher said it’s not for lack of trying.
“Sadly there are patients much like Tracy who are urgent, and there are so many of them, we can’t get them all in the at the same time,” said Fletcher.
Not able to walk and on strong opioids for pain, Porteous decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She decided to pay for private hip replacement surgery in Calgary.
