N.S. has worst wait times for knee and hip replacements: study
Nova Scotia ranks last among the provinces when it comes to wait times for knee- and hip-replacement surgeries, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
A year ago, the provincial government put $4.2 million into reducing wait times for hip and knee replacements, but so far that's created little improvement.
People lining up for a hip operation today can expect to wait at least a year on average, says Dr. Eric Howatt, and it's much longer for a new knee.
Howatt heads orthopedics at Valley Regional hospital in Kentville and serves on the orthopedic surgeons advisory committee to the province.
The national benchmark for hip and knee wait times is six months.
The province's 2015 numbers on wait times for each region are expected to be released within the next few weeks. The most recent wait times published for the Capital Health region cover the last few months of 2014.
They show two-thirds of patients got hip surgeries within six months, while only 37 per cent of knee replacements met the same national standard.
Howatt says the new figures show a different story.
"I think the last figure I saw, we were only doing 38 per cent [of total hip replacements] within six months," Howatt told CBC News. "Often, that 38 percent have to be done for some medical reason."
He says more joint replacement surgeries are being done across Nova Scotia. But Howatt says wait times have not dropped because of a shortage of in-patient beds and problems with unsterilized equipment in April.
The doctor says it'll be hard to clear the resulting backlog of postponed orthopedic surgeries.
"You can do that by lengthening [operating rooms] days and utilizing weekends, but that takes money and there are contractual obligations that you have to work around," notes Howatt. "We are working toward that but right now we can't get to the number we need to catch up."
He says the problem is not a shortage of surgeons but a shortage of money and trained staff like nurses.
"This is a resource issue. It is not an orthopedic surgeon issue," says Howatt. "There are in excess of 20 orthopedic surgeons in this province who do joint replacements. We can do the joints to bring the numbers up if the resources and the organization of the system is such that it can happen."
Despite these challenges — and the fact other provinces such as Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have managed to reduce orthopedic wait times in the past five years — the surgeon remains optimistic.
The province's health budget has $2 million earmarked for catching up and more meetings are scheduled with government to address the problem.
