A Manitoba woman who waited six years for a knee replacement says the health-care system has failed her again after her leg had to be amputated post-surgery.
Roseanne Milburn, 61, waited years on multiple wait lists for double knee replacement surgery when she finally had the procedure in October. After weeks of complications, she was hospitalized with an infection at Health Sciences Centre on Nov. 27, and a surgeon removed dead skin on her knee, leaving an open wound.
She was transferred to Concordia Hospital to see an orthopedic surgeon, believing she would immediately be sent back to HSC to proceed with surgery to transfer skin and muscle to the knee. Instead, she waited for days at Concordia — with the open wound — because there was no longer a bed waiting for her.
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A Manitoba woman suffering from a post-surgery infection has had her leg amputated. Roseanne Milburn, a 61-year-old military veteran, was in hospital to undergo a knee replacement, but needed follow-up surgery after she developed an infection. She says she was told it would take a day for a surgeon to remove dead tissue from her right knee and stitch her up.
Her right leg was amputated Friday night.
Milburn blames her surgeon and the province’s overcrowded hospitals for the loss of her leg.
“I believe it happened because of this Manitoba health-care system,” Milburn, a military veteran, said from her hospital bed Monday at Concordia. “We’ve just let it go on for so many years, and now we’re at this point where you’re taking people’s limbs unnecessarily. It’s not right.”
She and her husband, fellow veteran Dan Milburn, believe that if she didn’t have to wait for a bed, and if the surgeon hadn’t begun the procedure before confirming there was a bed available, the infection may have cleared up and she would still have her leg.
“We feel helpless,” Dan Milburn said.
“There was no magical cure, there’s nothing that could have been done after the fact that the doctor started something couldn’t finish, and basically, because of that, she’s lost her leg, and we’re still looking for answers.”
Provincial surgical lead Dr. Edward Buchel said the complications that led to Milburn’s leg being amputated should have received earlier intervention in the days when the surgery was healing. He said the wait between transfers likely had “no definitive impact” on her outcome.
“The focus is on the beds, not on the care. Everybody doesn’t want to really look at the people providing the care, because it’s sort of sacrosanct, you don’t talk about care providers and delivering bad care or subpar care,” he said.
“You talk about the system all the time, the system not being there. Yes, the system was slow, it could have been quicker, but I think when you look at this, that’s not the predominant issue.”
The province does between 7,000 and 8,000 arthroplasty surgeries in a year. Around four of those result in an infection that requires a secondary procedure, and complications resulting in amputations happen “not every year, not every other year,” he said.
“It was recommended. I can’t talk to specifics of what the conversations were, but I know for a fact that multiple options were discussed … it was made very clear that she was making her choice,” he said.
The pair said they were presented with other options for treating the infection, but those options came with a low chance of success and the possibility of re-infection that would result in the leg being amputated anyway.
“It would mean multiple surgeries and no guarantee at the end of the day,” Dan said.
The couple said they are speaking with a lawyer and will file a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said their office has been in contact with the Milburns.
“Certainly, if there are further reviews or any investigations that need to happen, they will occur,” Asagwara said at an unrelated news conference.
Milburn spoke with the Free Press in January about her struggles with pain while after spending six years on wait lists and again in August after planning to sell her home and move to Alberta in hopes of trying her luck there.
Even now, they wait: the couple, who live in Elie, said they’re stuck in Winnipeg waiting for a bed to open at a hospital closer to home, hopefully in time for Christmas.
Milburn said she’s sharing her story as a cautionary tale to anyone else struggling to navigate Manitoba’s health-care system.
“I think the only thing keeping me going is getting the word out, because I don’t want this to happen to someone else, not even one person,” she said. “If this could stop it from happening from one person, I’m good.”
malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
Malak Abas
Reporter
Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.
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