‘I just don’t understand’: Sask. residents express frustration at surgery wait times

Waiting for something you’ve been looking forward to can be a frustrating feeling.

That feeling is amplified when you’re in pain and the thing you’re waiting for is surgery.

“There’s nothing you can do. It feels like the health-care system in Saskatchewan is so pathetic,” Pam Soveran said.

The 65-year-old Regina woman has found herself waiting two years for a knee replacement and she certainly isn’t alone.

A recent report done by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) showed the median wait time in Saskatchewan for knee replacements was 416 days while it was 234 days for hip replacements.

Throughout the country, the median average was 159 days for knees and 134 days for hips.

Those totals put Saskatchewan last among all provinces, with neighbouring Manitoba ranking second-last.

“I just don’t understand the reasoning behind it. Other provinces get stuff done, why can’t we?” Soveran asked.

Shay Prokop from Regina claims to have waited more than a year to repair a hernia and Regina’s Carrie Jo-Ann Norbeck says she has waited a similar time frame to repair her ankle.

The list goes on and on with people claiming they have waited upwards of five years in certain cases for some surgeries they have been waitlisted for.

The problem is bad enough that many people are saying they’ve considered travelling elsewhere just for a chance at receiving the surgery they need.

Health Minister Paul Merriman says the province continues to make efforts to tackle the issues surrounding the backlog in the province, even going as far as to acknowledge that this was a long-standing issue.

“We found out in the last couple of years that things are unpredictable, so we think we could do this in about 36 months,” Merriman said in March after the announcement of the budget when he was asked about a target for getting the backlog under control.

“That’s what our officials are telling us with the added surgical capacity that we’re doing, but not just in the major centres. We’re also going to look at rural Saskatchewan and we’re going to set up some surgical theatres out there as well and utilize that because we want to make sure that all areas of our health-care system are maxed out.”

Prior to the pandemic in 2019, 39 per cent of people received a knee replacement within six months and 47 per cent received a hip replacement.

“I know a lot of people that are waiting and we don’t understand what the problem is,” Soveran said. “I feel like I could go to Alberta and probably get into a doctor and get into surgery a lot quicker than sitting here for years in Saskatchewan.”

Publicly funded private orthopedic surgeries in the province remain a priority for the provincial government to deal with the backlog.

“We’re looking early summer for the request for proposal (RFP) to go out. We’re hoping for a very quick turnaround so we can get those up and running,” Merriman said. “We’ve been talking to some of the surgical centres, some of the private ones, to be able to see what their capacity is and what they need as far as scope.

“Later on, probably in early summer, we’re going to announce an RFP for additional hips and knees out of Saskatoon. So this is certainly going to help out with the orthopedic side because those are the more complex surgeries.”

In the meantime, Soveran says she finds herself continuing to wait with no timeline in sight.

“It feels like you can’t get sick here or break anything or tear anything,” she said. “I just don’t understand what the problem is.”