Province says it won't meet pledge to reduce surgical backlog by February

The Nova Scotia government has failed to meet its self-imposed deadline of significantly reducing the surgical backlog by February 2023, with 9,500 more people on the wait-list than targeted.

Shortly after the Progressive Conservatives won the August 2021 election, Premier Tim Houston mandated Health Minister Michelle Thompson to reach what he called "benchmark standards" for the number of people on the province's wait-list.

Thompson acknowledged on Monday that the deadline won't be reached.

"We know there's a lot of work to do," Thompson said in an interview.

Health authority CEO Karen Oldfield has said that according to national benchmarks set by a group of national medical specialty associations, Nova Scotia should have just 12,000 people on its wait-list. Instead there are currently 21,500 people waiting for surgeries.

In a legislative committee meeting on Dec. 13, Oldfield said that Nova Scotia would reduce its backlog by about 10,000 people by mid-2025.

Thompson said, however, that progress has been made, and "we have early indicators that show us that we are beginning to really have an impact on the wait-list."

The minister said that for three consecutive quarters, the number of completed surgeries has been larger than the number of new patients added to the surgical wait-list.

A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health said that total operating room hours so far this year are at 98 per cent of pre-COVID-19 baseline levels.

The health authority has increased operating room efficiency and turnover, Thompson said, adding that there has been success in ramping up the rate of some kinds of surgeries.

She gave the example of outpatient knee replacement surgery, saying there were 67 in total completed in 2019-2020, and there have been more than a thousand so far in this fiscal year, which ends March 31.

"We are pleased with the way things are going; we are certainly gaining momentum," Thompson said.

Houston's surgery wait-list targets were included in his mandate letter to the health minister, shortly after the Progressive Conservatives won a majority government — largely on a promise to spend massively on the health-care system. Also included in that letter is a call for Thompson to allow operating rooms to run "beyond banker's hours," though that goal did not come with a deadline.

Nova Scotia Health spokesperson Brendan Elliott said in an email, "We continue to explore and exhaust all opportunities to extend our OR (operating room) use beyond typical hours of operation."

When asked why the 18-month time frame to reduce surgery waits was included in the mandate letter if it was not an achievable target, Thompson declined to comment.

"What I can say is that we are very focused on action for health — it's going to take time and money and we're committed to improving access to surgeries for Nova Scotians," she said.

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta-Canadian Press News Fellowship, which is not involved in the editorial process.