Manitoba wait times for cataract, knee surgeries among worst nationwide in first 18 months of pandemic: report
CBC
An analysis of how Canadian wait times for surgeries and diagnostic tests were impacted in the first year-and-a-half of the pandemic suggests Manitoba lagged behind nearly all provinces when it came to cataract and knee surgeries.
The latest report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information out late Monday night compares wait times among provinces in the first 18 months of the pandemic. That window doesn't include data on how the Delta, Omicron and its subvariant, known as BA.2, coronavirus waves impacted wait times.
From April 2020 to September 2021, CIHI analysis suggests just over one third — 38 per cent — of Manitobans on the wait list for knee surgery received the procedure within the national benchmark time frame of six months.
Manitoba trailed all provinces on this front, save for Saskatchewan, and came up about 20 per cent short of the Canadian average. Pre-pandemic, about 70 per cent of patients nationwide got their knees replaced within the recommended time span.
"In our more recent data we see some some improvements, but we still see wait times lagging, in particular for Manitoba we see that knee replacement patients are still waiting quite a bit longer than pre-pandemic," said Erin Pichora, manager of health system analytics at CIHI.
Only three provinces fared worse than Manitoba as far as hip surgery wait times were concerned; 55 per cent of Manitobans needing the surgery had it done within six months, compared to 65 per cent nationwide.
Pichora said Manitoba is near the middle of the pack for wait times for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The median wait time was at 66 days for an MRI scan during the period analyzed, compared to the 55 days it was pre-pandemic, she said.
Manitoba also came in second last for cataract surgery wait times in the opening 18 months of the pandemic. According to CIHI, 39 per cent of those patients received the surgery within the 112-day benchmark period, compared to 66 per cent nationally (70 per cent pre-pandemic).
Pichora said a number of provinces were able to ramp cataract surgeries back up as the pandemic dragged on.
"With Manitoba the cataract surgeries rebounded … better actually than pre-pandemic, but if we look across the country is still quite a bit lower than most other provinces."
In Alberta, 64 per cent of cataract patients had the surgery done within 112 days, and 63 per cent did in Saskatchewan.
Manitoba's hip, knee and cataract surgery woes predate the pandemic. In 2019, CIHI reported figures suggesting the percentage of Manitobans receiving those procedures within the recommended period had dropped for the fourth year in a row.
Linda Kroeker, 71, said she has been on a knee replacement wait list for three years.
She started off the pandemic using a cane, then later a walker, and is now in a wheelchair after suffering numerous falls, including one that landed her in hospital last year for six weeks with a broken hip.
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