Woman says mother has been waiting 3 years for knee replacement as surgeries continue to get postponed

EDMONTON -

Scheduled surgeries have been put on the backburner since the start of the pandemic to free up space and resources in our healthcare facilities across the country.

Because of that, thousands of Canadians have been left on a waitlist to have a date set or rescheduled for their knee, hip or joint replacement.

“We’re seeing the wait times are increasing,” Tracy Johnson, the director of health system analytics, said.

In 2020, only 50 per cent of Canadians had their scheduled surgery within the benchmark of 182 days, Johnson explained.

In Alberta, 62 per cent of Albertans received their elective surgery within 182 days in 2019, but it dropped to 39 per cent in 2020.

Sara Peterson told CTV News Edmonton her 65-year-old mother has been waiting more than three years to have her knee replacement. She was put on the waitlist following her hip surgery in October of 2017.

“In that time all of her other joints are getting more arthritic,” Peterson said.

“She’s going to be the bionic woman. She’s going to have both hips and both knees replaced eventually.”

While her mom’s knee surgery was scheduled for earlier this year, it got cancelled about a week before it was supposed to take place.

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“The hardest part has been seeing her in pain and knowing there’s a surgery that could improve her quality of life and she’s just waiting,” Peterson said.

According to Johnson, due to the strenuous hours healthcare workers are enduring due to the pandemic, making up for the backlog of elective surgeries would have to be carved out in the summer, afterhours or at Christmas.

“Finding people to work during those times when they’ve already worked pretty hard throughout COVID is also pretty challenging,” she said.

'TRY LIVING IN CHRONIC PAIN'

Johnson told CTV News there was about an 80 per cent decrease in surgeries across the board last April, and since then there’s been a gradual return to get volumes back up to where they used to be. But, she says the wait can be up to 429 days now or longer.

“We do know our health work force is aging in Canada just like our population so replacing that is a key concern across all provinces,” Johnson added.

At this point Peterson said her goal is to be heard, as her mom and thousands of other Canadians are waiting for a surgery that could “change their life.”

“We need to redefine what elective is and what’s emergent,” Peterson added.

“Try living in a chronic pain where you can’t walk, you can’t go up the stairs, you can’t sleep, anything like that just living day-to-day life and tell me that it’s still elective,” Peterson continued. “If she had the choice not to do it, she wouldn’t, but she needs to.”

Kerry Williamson, with Alberta Health Services, told CTV News all backlogged surgeries from the first wave of COVID-19 have now been rebooked and 96 per cent of all delayed surgeries from all three waves have been completed. 

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Touria Izri