Newfoundland and Labrador expects to reduce hip or knee replacement surgeries by 20% as procedures on the same day this fall. (Paul Daly / CBC)
Two patients who have undergone hip or knee replacement surgery warn that the Newfoundland and Labrador government’s plan to do some of the procedures without a hospital stay will lead to discomfort, or even complications.
In the fall, the government expects 20% of hip and knee replacement surgeries to be performed as procedures on the same day. The goal is to keep hospital beds available for other surgical patients, with waits for joint replacement surgeries among the longest in the province.
Catherine Dempsey, who had both hips replaced a few years ago, says her procedures and recoveries went well, but the extra time in the hospital helped.
“I had some oxygen, so they caught me and looked at me overnight,” he said Monday.
When he had his second surgery, he had a better idea of what to expect.
“And then I learned that this time, when the physiotherapist showed up and asked you to go up and down a rung, they would send you home immediately,” he said.
“I wasn’t comfortable at the time. I felt worse than after the first one, so I refused to take the plunge.”
Dempsey said he was discharged after 48 hours in the hospital instead of the 36 hours scheduled at the time.
Paul Marino said he could probably have returned home after having surgery to replace both knees two years ago, but that it would have been difficult because the painkillers he was prescribed were too weak and he was in the hospital. allow you to get something stronger.
“It was very painful and it was a very slow recovery. It wasn’t the best.”
Pre-pandemic problem
According to the health authority, there are about 1,800 people in the Eastern health region alone awaiting hip or knee replacement surgery.
About 1,550 are ready to go immediately, Dr. Will Moores, head of the orthopedics division at Eastern Health, said Tuesday.
Moores, who has been an surgeon on Eastern Health staff since 2013, said that excluding the first year of construction from his practice, waiting times were generally around a year. Today, he said, the waiting times for a standard hip or knee replacement can be more than two years.
Some 1,800 people in the eastern health region of Newfoundland and Labrador are waiting for hip or knee replacement surgery. (Bright097 / Shutterstock)
“There’s definitely no shortage of jobs,” he said.
“I probably wouldn’t say the system has failed. Is that so? It would be hard to deny it.”
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic cost about six months of lost operating time for hip and knee replacements, Moores said. Some operations advanced, he said, simply not standard elective or joint reconstruction surgeries.
The October cyber attack on the healthcare system left hip and knee replacements out of the system for about six weeks, he added.
“You’re looking at more than seven months of the last two years that were lost,” he said.
While long waiting times were a problem long before COVID-19, Moores said, the pandemic certainly made things worse.
“Our ability to complete so many joints actually started to decline before the pandemic and this is more of a stress factor throughout the system, particularly with the beds and being able to recruit and retain enough nurses to operate those beds.” He said.
Moores said it is becoming commonplace elsewhere for knee and hip replacement surgeries to become procedures on the same day.
Any hospital that didn’t do it before the pandemic made the change fairly quickly to maintain capacity while surgeries were still being done, he said.
Moores said the 20 percent target will not necessarily shorten the overall surgical backlog, but will shorten the backlog for a particular population of generally healthier patients.
“We can do more joints and not require more beds,” he said.
“This national guideline for a standard hip and knee replacement is six months … I think the ideal situation here is that our waiting time would be reduced to the national guideline, which if you see a standard hip replacement or knee, you will be able to reasonably tell them that your surgery will be completed approximately six months later. “
Read more about CBC Newfoundland and Labrador