COVID-19 hospitalizations, service slowdowns forcing some Sask. residents to wait for surgery

Bob Pratt suffered a grand mal seizure last month. He'd been visiting doctors for various diagnostics tests in the weeks leading up to the episode, but through the seizure, doctors diagnosed that there is a slow-growing tumour pushing against the 76-year-old's brain.

But Pratt cannot be admitted to surgery.

"Once he was in hospital for two weeks and they put him on the correct medication, they had wanted to operate right away, because the only option for treatment ... is just tumour resection," said Janna Pratt, grand-daughter. A resection is an operation where all or part of a tumour, and some surrounding tissue, is removed.

"It's not the surgery that we're delaying; it's the [intensive care unit] that has delayed it. The surgeons are good to go. Operating room is good to go, but there are no beds for recovery."

To prepare for a significant surge in COVID-19 cases, the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) instituted another stage of its surge plan on Dec. 3. The plan aims to be able to redeploy health-care workers in areas that need more resources, while maintaining non-COVID-related health services wherever possible.

Surgeries — including urgent, emergent and cancer surgeries — are among the services that are to be fully maintained.

As of Wednesday, there are 124 COVID-19 hospitalizations, including 30 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Pratt, who is an elder from George Gordon First Nation, is patiently waiting for surgery in Regina, which currently has 12 ICU patients — the most of any other zone in the province.

His surgery date has been pushed back three times, most recently just this week. His granddaughter says he was prepped for surgery on December 11, but it was called down 15 minutes before because an accident victim came in.

 His surgery is currently set for Dec. 22.

The doctors have told the family the delays have been due to COVID-19 patients and other emergency patients taking up beds.

"He's in really good spirits because he's finally diagnosed," she said, adding that her grandfather has made some friends while in hospital.

"But it's very hard to mentally prepare for a surgery that keeps getting cancelled and postponed."

Elective surgeries part of slowdowns

Vicki Cassidy, a breast cancer survivor in Saskatoon, is waiting for a procedure that will make her feel normal again.

Cassidy had both breasts removed. After the second mastectomy in July 2019, she received a tissue expander — a balloon-like implant placed between the skin and chest muscle that a plastic surgeon fills over time to stretch the skin and make room for a breast implant.

An expander may have to be removed, however, if the patient had radiation treatment. This was the case for Cassidy, who had an expander removed on Mar. 12 — the day the first COVID-19 case was announced in Saskatchewan.

"Oh crap," Cassidy said after hearing surgical staff talk about the first confirmed case.

"Unfortunately, at that point, I had no idea how it was actually going to affect the rest of my reconstruction until they closed everything down."

Cassidy's surgeon is still performing surgeries for breast cancer patients, she said. But elective surgeries — procedures that do not involve a medical emergency — are part of the service slowdowns under the SHA surge plan.

"The number of elective surgeries performed will be decreased in conjunction with current capacity as we work to meet the expected demand of COVID-19 patients," a SHA spokesperson told CBC News via email last week.

Cassidy, who had a new expander on her right side filled this fall, does not know when she'll be able to receive an implant because that date depends on how long the slowdowns last, she said.

"It could be another six months, could be a year, it could be January, we don't know," she said.

A positive of the slowdown is Cassidy won't have to bring someone into her bubble post-surgery. Her immune system has recovered from the chemotherapy, but she would need to be cared for after the operation and could be susceptible to anything brought from the outside, she said.

Regardless, the delay is frustrating. Cassidy, who stuffs the left side of her bra to make herself feel normal, just wants to get her surgery over with, and finally be able to take off her bra and see "bumps on both sides instead of one," she said.

This article was produced thanks to submissions to CBC Saskatchewan's COVID-19 questionnaire. We want to hear how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted you. Share your story here.