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Manitoba continues to lag behind most of the rest of the country with its surgery backlog with children, rural and remote patients, and lower income groups most affected, Doctors Manitoba said.
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Only Newfoundland and Labrador has a higher volume of lingering pandemic backlog, the advocacy group said Thursday on the heels of a national report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Volumes did return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023-24 for Manitoba, but still sits at 40,160 lost surgeries, or about 40% of a typical pre-pandemic year of surgery volumes, it said. That’s nearly the equivalent of five full months of work.
The national average is at 21% of a full year of volume. British Columbia and Prince Edward Island have eliminated their surgical backlogs.
“This backlog isn’t just a number. It’s impacting real lives, adding months of pain and uncertainty for patients and families across Manitoba. In many areas, surgical wait times are longer than they used to be or longer than medically recommended benchmarks,” Dr. Randy Guzman, a vascular surgeon who is Doctors Manitoba president, said in a release. “It’s troubling to see our province lagging behind most others, as patients wait longer for essential surgeries.”
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The CIHI report notes that patients who get surgery faster show improved health outcomes, experience fewer complications and less stress, have a better quality of life and move on in their health journey sooner.
Children’s surgical volumes are 12% behind pre-pandemic levels while rural and remote patients, along with lower income groups have yet to see surgical volumes rebound from COVID-19 backlogs, revealing inequities in restoring surgical volumes in the province, Doctors Manitoba said.
“Manitoba must continue to focus on both recovering from the pandemic backlog as well as expanding volumes to match our rapidly expanding and aging population,” Guzman said.
While volumes last year did come in 1% higher than in 2019-20, Manitoba’s population grew by 6% over the same period.
Specifically, cataract surgery volumes are down 10% from pre-pandemic levels. Hip fracture repairs are a bright spot, Doctors Manitoba said, with 88% of cases done within the 48-hour benchmark.
Volumes for hip and knee replacement “have grown significantly” though only half of patients are having the surgery done within the 26-week benchmark.
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