Two Whitehorse surgeons are calling attention to longer wait times for joint replacements.

In a March 23 letter addressed to their patients, Dr. Scott Westberg and Dr. Adam Mcintyre of the Yukon Surgical Clinic advised their patients, “Our previous wait for joint replacement patients currently awaiting surgery was about a year.

“We have recently been made aware that this wait has now increased to approximately 18-24 months. We recognize this is long, and we are truly sorry. This is not where we want to be, and we understand the physical and emotional impact this news may have on you.”

Several factors are lengthening wait times, the letter points out.

They include :

• a growing number of patients requiring surgery;

• staffing issues causing operating room slowdowns;

• the need for further surgeon support;

• a lack of beds causing delays in booked procedures; and

• a lack of funding for joint replacement surgery.

“We want to assure you that we are doing our best to address these issues and improve the situation,” the letter says.

It advises patients of a few ways to reduce wait times. Those include cancelling surgeries when feeling better and not turning down surgical dates unless there is a change in health or a medical reason for doing so.

The surgeons also said they are “strongly encouraging patients to contact their MLA about the need for better funding. They need to know how long wait times are affecting our patients.”

Brad Cathers, the Yukon Party MLA for Lake Laberge, raised the letter in the legislature Monday, and spoke with reporters afterward.

He was asked if he’s confident the government will fix the delays in joint surgeries.

“Absolutely not. We have seen no indication from this Liberal government that they treat health care as serious as it should be, whether it be the ongoing issues of the shortage of funding for the hospital corporation, which is directly resulting in the problem we’re talking about today,” Cathers said.

“Or their failures to pay doctors for, in excess of a million dollars, by their own admission, of billings for services, with some of those billings outstanding for over 90 days.

“This is a continued problem with this Liberal government, and the talking points do not line up with what’s actually happening.”

The Yukon Party has “heard directly from the physicians at the Surgical Clinic that part of the problem is a lack of funding,” Cathers added.

“ ... We continue to point to what the hospital CEO (Jason Bilsky) said they needed in operational funding from the government for the last fiscal year, which was $103.5 million. You can find that number from his appearance (in the House) on Nov. 22 last year, and what we actually see in contrast to the $103.5 million in O and M (operations and maintenance) the CEO said they needed from government.

“They received $14.5 million less last fiscal year and about $10 million less the current fiscal year,” Cathers said.

“So that massive shortage in funding to the hospital is having a direct impact.

“As the surgeons themselves said clearly in the letter they sent to patients, this problem relates to a lack of funding that is being provided,” Cathers said.

“So we’re hearing continued lip service from the minister (Tracy-Anne McPhee), but the budget speaks for itself. And the surgeons speak for themselves.”

His party has “continued to call on the government to work with the (Whitehorse General) hospital, with doctors and other health professionals on a wait time reduction strategy,” Cathers said.

“And we continue to see no attempt by government to come up with an actual wait time reduction strategy.”

NDP Leader Kate White said she’s heard from people who have received the “devastating news” of needing both hips replaced, but only having one done.

“Then you’re told, ‘you’re just gonna have to live with the pain for up to two years,’” White told reporters, calling that news “almost unfathomable for people.

“What this backlog of surgeries is showing and the delay in these surgeries is it really adversely affects people, and that’s what I think all of our concern should be” the NDP leader said.

“Saying that it’s the responsibility of the hospital corporation to manage the resources, I don’t think is accurate. There’s a shortage of staff there, which we talk about on a regular basis.”

White added, “Government made the decision that we were going to do those types of surgeries here to save people from the hardship of having to travel out for them. Well, then we need to make sure that we’re doing those surgeries.”

She proposed that the government send patients out of the territory to reduce wait times “if we’re not able to perform the surgeries here because we’re short-staffed at the hospital and we don’t have the beds or we don’t have the nurses to offer that support.”

She was asked whether any of the issues could be addressed under the Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA) the NDP signed with the Liberals on Jan. 31. She cited training programs as a possible solution to the lack of staffing.

She then admitted, “There’s a lot of issues at the hospital right now, to be honest, that, unfortunately, the CASA will not address, but there’s also issues that Yukon Government does have the ability to address right now and I think that’s what we need to focus on.”

As an example, White said, if a patient has been put on a two-year wait list, then “it’s the government’s responsibility to get you out sooner if you can be seen by someone in a shorter amount of time.”

White added, “If we want people to be active participants in society and in their lives, they have to be able to move around. So without those surgeries, it’s really limited.”

McPhee told reporters that in 2017, the government set up a resident orthopedic surgeon program in the territory.

“Before that, everybody went Outside for knee and hip replacements, and even often for emergency surgeries that had to do with orthopedic surgeons,” she noted.

McPhee said 28 knee replacements were performed in the first year, and the program grew to include hip replacements.

The system recently had one orthopedic surgeon leave, and it currently has two (Westberg and McIntyre) on staff.

The joint committee consists of Yukon surgeons, the Yukon Hospital Corp. and the Department of Health and Social Services.

“They regularly review surgical service agreements and allocate the number of procedures per discipline based on factors that include things like wait times, urgency, and, of course, allowing space for emergency surgeries,” McPhee said.

Emergency surgeries include treatment for things like broken arms or wrists.

She said she didn’t know how many people are currently on the waitlist for knee and hip replacements in Whitehorse.

“I know that it is creeping up from about one year from the time that (you) see your own doctor to the time that your surgery is done to up as high as 18 months in some situations, depending on how many emergency surgeries there are.”

McPhee said 100 orthopedic surgeries were scheduled last year, and 104 were actually done.

“So they’re about on track. But of course we always want to improve that. Those are not wait times that we – they’re within the recommendations from medical professionals in the country, but it’s not something we want,” McPhee said.

“We want to improve those wait times. That’s why I spoke with one of the signatories to the letter on Thursday. I asked them about the issues that they raised in the letter.”

Those issues will be referred to the joint committee.

“I’ll be making sure that we follow along to determine what is the best recommendations of the surgeons and whether that’s being taken into account by the committee and what is in the best advice that we can get from Yukon Hospital Corporation and the Department of Health and Social Services,” McPhee said.

She has spoken with the corporation’s board chair and CEO about the issues raised in the surgeons’ letter.

She also said the target wait time would be a year or less.

“We’ll deal with the other issues together, and I’m very confident that we can figure out what the surgeons think is the best route and the most efficient way that we can provide service to Yukoners … then we will be talking to the hospital corp. and the experts at the department so that we can come up with a solution,” McPhee added.