Orthopedic travel team successfully performs 1st surgeries on Northern Peninsula
Teams meant address long wait times for joint replacements
An orthopedic travel team performed its first surgeries on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula last week, as part of an ongoing effort to address surgical backlogs in the province.
The team, led by Eastern Health's head of orthopedics, Dr. William Moores, travelled to St. Anthony on Jan. 22 to perform 11 joint replacements over five days at the Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital.
While the number of surgeries performed might not seem significant, Moores said, even small measures help alleviate the backlog, given that about 2,000 patients are waiting for orthopedic surgeries in the Eastern Health region alone.
"You're looking at a small dent. It's 0.5 per cent but it's 0.5 per cent that we would not have gotten done this week otherwise. So it is a true additional resource. It's not like we robbed Peter to pay Paul here," said Moores.
"It's a small step but … if you don't take any small steps you're never going to make large improvements."
In total, nearly 3,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador are on a wait-list to have knee or hip replacement surgery.
While the national benchmark for wait times on these surgeries is 182 days, or about six months, for some patients in the province the wait can take up to two years.
The new model of orthopedic travel teams was announced by the provincial government on Nov. 9 as a new strategy to shorten wait lists for joint replacements. At the announcement, Premier Andrew Furey said travel teams could increase the number of knee and hip replacement surgeries by 300 a year.
According to the provincial government, the teams could potentially perform up to 140 surgeries a year at the St. Anthony hospital alone.
Moores said everything has run efficiently at the hospital, adding that it was "a good fit" for multiple reasons.
"Oftentimes, in areas like here, the [operating room] is not being utilized because they don't have access to the high volume of patients … and also oftentimes, they have difficulty with recruitment of physicians," said Moores.
"Trying to maximize the use of that resource was our goal, and that's been pretty seamless, to be honest. I had some reservations about how it would work with the higher volume but it certainly has surpassed my expectations."
Post-surgery checkups, he said, are performed by both the travel team and staff on site. Of those having had surgery last week, said Moores, nobody had any complications — but all showed gratitude for the service.
"I have to give thanks to them for thinking outside the box, as well," he said. "In many cases, it really did expedite their time on the wait list."
While Moores said some logistical details between the different health authorities and the provincial government still need to be worked out, there are plans to regularly send out orthopedic travel teams to St. Anthony.
"It would be basically a one-week blitz or orthopedic outreach, or whatever phrase you want to use, a month," said Moores, adding there would likely be a break over the summer months due to staffing challenges.
At the November announcement, the provincial government said that while the strategy is being tested for orthopedic surgeries first, other procedures could be added in the future, if the initiative proves successful.
Work is also underway at the Carbonear General Hospital to potentially send travel teams there in the near future.
With files from CBC Newfoundland Morning