Omicron creates new wave of delayed hospital procedures and surgeries in Maritimes

Kristie Carrier says her stepfather’s stage four lung cancer diagnosis came too late this summer.

An early misdiagnosis, delays in accessing routine testing and an MRI left Carrier wondering how it could’ve gone differently.

"He was basically given a prescription for cough medicine and at one point a puffer and it was basically brushed off," said Belledune, New Brunswick resident Kristie Carrier.

Carrier said staffing issues resulted in a delay to receiving the results of her step-father Keith Scott’s MRI and bone scan, which showed the 64-year-old had lung cancer.

"Finally we got in touch with the Bathurst hospital and we got the information, that the one person at the Bathurst hospital who was able to read these scans was away on personal leave, and nobody knew when this person would be back," said Carrier,

Scott is now continuing his cancer therapy, but the family wonders if an earlier catch may have directed them into another situation.

In Nova Scotia, 355 patients are in hospital with COVID-19.

Dr. Nicole Boutilier, VP of medicine with Nova Scotia Health says all elective surgeries have been postponed as the Omicron wave has put immense pressure on the healthcare system.

“We have slowed things down like surgeries and ambulatory care, in order to create space and staff to help people coming through the door,” said Boutilier, “This wave has resulted in many more staff being impacted by COVID exposure or disease.”

Compared to the same pre-pandemic timeline, there were 15,000 fewer surgeries completed in Nova Scotia between March 16 and Dec. 31, 2021.

“Currently we are doing urgent and emergent and cancer surgeries. Our staff and everyone looking after this under incredible pressure," said Boutilier.

On Friday morning, there were 124 patients in emergency departments across Nova Scotia waiting for a bed.

Disaster and emergency physician Dr. Trevor Jain, said hospital capacity was an issue before COVID-19, but the impacts of the delays for procedures will only continue to exhaust the overwhelmed health care system.

“This will be the new norm,” said Jain, “We have to get rid of hallway medicine. We’ve got to bring back respect and dignity for our patients and we need to bring back the ability for our health care providers to continue to do awesome bedside care without worrying about capacity.”

In New Brunswick, Horizon Health says 11,764 surgeries have been performed while 1,180 elective surgeries were postponed since the New Year.

“I don’t want COVID to become the excuse by leadership, because of COVID we got X,” said Jain “We had a lot of these issues pre-COVID.”

Jain is calling for a national strategy with stronger guidelines for hospitals to meet capacity standards and is calling for long-term care to be taken out of hospitals to free up capacity.