(CJME News Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Community health

Lack of available hospital beds leaves Prince Albert area residents in ‘limbo’

Oct 25, 2021 | 5:00 PM

Stephanie Brad from Domremy has been waiting over a year and a half for a surgery that she fears now will never come.

The full day operation, which involves the complete removal of her bladder, had been scheduled for Monday, but like hundreds of others across the province, Brad received notice it was being cancelled. On top of that she was given no alternative date.

“I’ve been in pain too long and I am continuing to get worse every day. My body is failing me. I need to get better but it’s out of everybody’s hands. Just cancelled, that’s it,” she said.

Brad explained when it was learned non-essential surgeries would be cancelled, she was assured by her surgeon she would be bumped to the urgent/ essential list and yet here she is still waiting while her pain continues to worsen, leaving her essentially bed ridden and relying on the help of her children to do her daily household chores.

“The pain I feel is like labor contractions so it’s like being in active labor every single day of my life,” she said.

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In anticipation of a surgery this week, Brad had a PICC (Peripherally inserted central catheter line inserted into her body.

“In the slim chance there is a last minute cancellation, then I would be ready to go but a cancellation of a full day surgery with 14 days in hospital, is not going to happen,” she said.

Adding to Brad’s frustrations is that while she waits at home for a new surgery date, over 13,000 people were allowed to attend the Eric Church concert in Saskatoon Saturday night.

“Even if only 10 per cent of them catch COVID, that’s 1,300 people so yeah I’m upset because they could end up in the hospital taking up space that I need to have surgery,” she said.

Noting that her own fully vaccinated daughter had still contracted COVID, Brad said vaccinations are not the be all, end all and that restrictions on public gathering limits should be re-instated.

A picture of the operating room at Victoria Hospital. (Sask. Health Authority)

In the Fall of 2019, Alan from Prince Albert injured a nerve in his neck that eventually led to the paralysis of his right diaphragm in the exhale position.

“It wasn’t long until I could barely go up a flight of stairs or walk half a block to check my mail without becoming winded,” he recalled.

A year later, after suffering symptoms similar to a heart attack, the 65-year-old was transported to hospital where a chest x-ray confirmed his right lung had totally collapsed.

Fast forward to February of 2021, Alan is in contact with a doctor who could perform a procedure which involves folding the diaphragm in half, to allow room for the lung to be re-inflated. Alan was told at the time to expect a three to four month wait.

“I was called by his office this summer and was told by mid 2022 so today who knows,” he said. “I am forced now to take sleeping polls so I can get some reasonable rest and also recently I even felt depression and am receiving treatment for that.”

Alan also noted he is currently in the process of selling his two “loves,” his boat and his motorcycle as he needs to simplify his life until he can eventually receive surgery.

During Friday’s technical briefing, Derek Miller, chief of emergency operations with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), confirmed surgeries have been cancelled because COVID patients are taking up the beds, those surgery patients would need to recover.

“By virtue of that, we’ve had to cancel and postpone a number of those kinds of priority surgeries that should be proceeding,” he said.

As well, Miller explained there are a number of patients on normal medical units who are “high acuity” and should be admitted or are at risk of needing to be admitted to ICU.

“Our current capacity limitations results in those patients staying on in those medical units when they should be considered for admission into the ICU,” he said.

He said the SHA is basically operating on a first-come, first-served basis for ICU care and there are various examples across the system where decisions are being made about patient care.

During Monday’s state of the province address, Premier Scott Moe answered questions from reporters with respect to whether we’d be seeing more restrictions in the province and the answer for right now is no.

He said the restrictions put in place in September are working and explained we’re seeing that with daily case numbers and active case numbers falling. Unless that trajectory changes, he said we won’t be seeing more measures put in place.

NDP response

Opposition leader Ryan Meili continues to call on Scott Moe to announce limits on gatherings, more supports in our healthcare system, and a new health Minister to replace Paul Merriman.

“The world is watching and Scott Moe is trying to change the channel,” he said.

With the legislature resuming in two days, Meili said the NDP won’t let Scott Moe change the channel.

“We will always put people first,” he said.

–

nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

— with files from 650 CKOM