Health care wait times were in the news again last week, with the release of a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. It found that waits are getting worse in B.C. for three of the five treatments it tracks: hip replacements, knee replacements, and cataract surgeries. For repair of broken hips, things are improving. It’s about steady when it comes to getting timely cancer treatment.
I’ve learned a lot about wait times in the past year, thanks to a skiing accident on April 4 last year.
My wait at the Whistler ER was about five hours. I was diagnosed with a possible torn ACL (which I now know is a pretty important ligament in the knee). I went into the queue for an MRI the following week, and got the scan on Oct. 11. It was another month before I was referred to an orthopedic surgeon, and four months before I had my consultation. I had surgery on March 16.
That’s roughly 11 months from the day I was injured until my operation.
But, here’s the thing. As far as elective surgeries go, I’m a good news story. And so are most others. According to Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) stats from January, 22 per cent of patients have to wait 26 weeks from the time a doctor OKs a surgery and puts them in the line-up until they get into an OR (just over one per cent wait more than a year). I waited just over a month.
Here’s the other thing. I met a lot of doctors, nurses and technicians along the way, and they were – without exception – amazing. They don’t have easy jobs. The technician who did my MRI, for instance, had to work the Sunday of a long weekend.
VCH publishes a regular report card on how it’s doing when it comes to meeting all sorts of benchmarks. It’s worth taking a look at – you can see it at vch.ca – because for the most part they’re doing pretty well, despite how things look when all we focus on is the problem.
You can hear us now ...
It was a quiet affair, but last week Coast Reporter launched its new podcast. The Coast Beat is a chance for us to try different ways to tell the stories we’re covering, and give you a little peek at what’s coming up every week. We’re also hoping it will be another way to check in with us when you’re on the go and don’t have time to sit down with the paper edition and a nice cuppa joe. New episodes will go up early Friday on our website, Soundcloud and, soon, iTunes.
