Urban Health Regions won’t meet elective surgery goals

Carney was emphatic the rates have been improving in recent months, partly because operating rooms are being used more often.

“We have increased our capacity. One big change in the last few months, since the fall, is that our operating rooms are now operating at 100 per cent capacity.”

That's been done by increasing the number of operating room nurses on staff up to full capacity. The region had been dealing with staffing shortfalls before that, restricting how many surgeries could be performed.

Carney admitted there have been issues in the past; finding and training surgical nurses in all the necessary areas of specialty proved difficult. He also insisted that such targets are harder for urban health regions to meet because smaller regions don't actually perform most electives, instead referring people to doctors in the city.

“Smaller centres can't do the kind of specialized surgeries that Saskatoon and Regina have.”

Saskatoon Health Region is further ahead than the RQHR

The Saskatoon Health Region completes nearly 80 per cent of elective surgeries within three months and more than 95 per cent within six months but they still will not reach the March goal.

Director of Surgical Services with the health region Stuart Hutton explained that they predict surgical volumes over a year in advance.

“We have actually hit the volumes that we wanted to do for 2013-14. However the number of people coming onto the wait list exceeds what we thought would come onto the wait list . That's the primary reason,” he said.

“We've increased our capacity. We are running extra theatres, we are running extra hours and we are increasing the number of patients scheduled and we expect to meet the three month target by October (or) November.”

Hutton said that the primary targets are pediatric dental and specialized ear nose and throat surgeries.

Pediatric dental surgeries often bring in patients from the Prince Albert Parkland and the Prairie North health regions. The children who require them are too young to tolerate the procedure without becoming agitated so a general anaesthetic is used which must be done in a hospital setting.

“The reasons for this have been examined by the Ministry of Health and they are working with these two health regions to expand their capacity to see these patients in their health region. That would always be the best case scenario is to be seen locally where possible,” Hutton said.

The health region also recruited a surgeon with specialized skills in complex ear procedures which were previously performed out of province. It caused a huge demand for the surgeries to be done locally.

Reports by the health region have shown that there is a steady reduction in wait times since mid-October with the exception of the last two weeks of December.

“Eighty per cent of our patients right now are actually seen within the three month window. We are working on that final 20 per cent,” Hutton said.

On the whole the province only sees 79 per cent of procedures completed within three months. Over six months 92 per cent are completed.

The province's health minister, Dustin Duncan, was not available to comment on Thursday.

With files from News Talk's Kelly Malone

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow

by Patrick Book

Urban Health Regions won’t meet elective surgery goals

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