‘Requests are just piling up’: Patients continue to suffer long waits for medical imaging
Global News
Many Canadians are being forced into a medical limbo as they wait for diagnoses or treatment because of major backlogs in medical imaging across the country.
Ewa Hodges assumed no news was good news after she went for a routine mammogram, but she later was “devastated” to learn this was far from the truth.
The Toronto, Ont., resident found out a year after her screening in 2019 that she had early-stage breast cancer and needed a lumpectomy.
After her surgery, Hodges was told she should have follow-up scans at least every six months to ensure she remained cancer-free. But this was just as the COVID-19 pandemic was causing many cancellations of non-urgent health appointments.
Hodges became entangled in what she describes as a “frustrating” fight to advocate for her own health.
“I received a phone call from diagnostics that (a follow-up mammogram) was going to be postponed because I’m not considered a priority,” she told Global News.
“That’s how it started. I was calling … everybody was giving me the runaround.”
Two months later, her cancer was back and she needed a second lumpectomy.
“I was very lucky because if I had stage one or two or further (stages) I would have been probably dead,” Hodges said.
