Thousands 'suffering in silence' as sleep disorder clinic backlog balloons: Doctors Manitoba

Sue Moon has been languishing on three or four hours of sleep a night while waiting for confirmation of something she's already sort of known for a long time.

Her loud breathing keeps her husband up at night. She wakes up exhausted, with little energy to play with her five grandchildren. She's tired all the time.

"I have not had a good sleep for 2½ years," said Moon, 62, who has now been diagnosed with sleep apnea and insomnia.

"It does impact your life in some ways. You don't have the energy to do a whole lot. You go out for a couple of hours and that's it — you just got to get home. You're just dog tired."

Earlier this month, Moon got into the Sleep Disorder Centre at Winnipeg's Misericordia Health Centre, more than two years after she says she was put on the wait-list.

Now that she has a sleep apnea diagnosis, she will soon get a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, which streams oxygenated air through the airways and can boost sleep quality.  

That holds promise for Moon, but she remains frustrated her quality of life, and that of thousands more Manitobans, has suffered due to growing backlogs.

"There are a lot of patients suffering in silence," said Dr. Kristjan Thompson, president of Doctors Manitoba and an emergency room physician at St. Boniface Hospital.

The advocacy group for physicians estimates almost 4,800 fewer sleep disorder tests were done during the pandemic, as resources were diverted to hospital patients with COVID-19.

That represents a 70 to 80 per cent drop and effectively doubled the waiting list to about 9,500, according to new estimates released by Doctors Manitoba last week.

It says there are now, in total, 136,000 backlogged surgeries and diagnostic procedures in the province, up about 6,000 from earlier this fall. Much of the latest bump is driven by backlogged sleep disorder studies, Doctors Manitoba says.

"I feel kind of guilty that I got my test, finally," said Moon. "How do you catch up on a backlog like that?"

The province is expected to announce details about a task force to tackle the backlog sometime soon. Earlier this year, $50 million was earmarked for the issue, but few other details have been released.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority confirmed Doctors Manitoba's estimate on the backlog in sleep disorder tests is accurate, and sleep studies are now operating at close to full capacity.