Surgery backlog at 'crisis' point in N.L., says NLMA

The association representing Newfoundland and Labrador's doctors wants the provincial government to make a plan for eliminating a backlog of surgeries that have built up due to COVID-19 shutdowns and the cyberattack on the province's health-care system.

In a media conference Friday morning, Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association president Dr. Susan MacDonald said the situation has become a crisis.

"Many patients are now waiting two to four years for necessary surgeries, and the backlog is growing," MacDonald said. "Each one of those cases is a person who is waiting for a surgical procedure that could significantly improve the quality of their life."

MacDonald said the surgery backlog is a problem across the province — including at hospitals in Corner Brook, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor and Carbonear — but is particularly acute in St. John's. She said surgeons at the Health Sciences Centre and St. Clare's Mercy Hospital pooled data and found 6,000 backlogged cases.

MacDonald said the backlog affects patients waiting for general surgery, urologic surgery, orthopaedic surgery, thoracic surgery, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, gynecologic oncology surgery and ENT surgical procedures.\

While speaking with reporters on Friday, Premier Andrew Furey said surgical delays in Newfoundland and Labrador aren't as bad as they are in other parts of Canada  — a fact he acknowledged is little comfort to patients waiting for procedures.

He said the government has begun taking some steps to eliminate the backlog, like offering outpatient surgeries that would normally be inpatient.

"We are open to solutions. We'd like to have a dialogue with the NLMA on potential solutions," he said.

MacDonald said many surgeons were not consulted before surgeries were cancelled, leaving them "scrambling" to explain the cancellations to their patients. She said the surgeons would like to see better collaborations in the future.

She said the NLMA wants the government to include people involved in surgeries on the front lines, like nurses and the surgeons themselves, in its planning process. Part of that plan would involve increasing the number of operating rooms in use and extending their hours.

The NLMA wants the government to set a fixed date for bringing the surgery backlog back to pre-pandemic levels, and create an online dashboard to track its progress.

"If the government can report the weekly numbers on COVID vaccination rate they can certainly report on the reduction of surgical backlog as well, which is a tremendous public health issue in the long term," MacDonald said.

Furey said he he's open to meeting with the NLMA and others about the surgical backlog.

"I'm not opposed to solutions that work," he said.