Halted surgeries leaving patients in anxious limbo

Shirley Ketola describes her latest kidney stone attack as the worst pain she has ever felt, an excruciating ordeal that left her curled up on the floor crying.

That pain could come back at any moment.

Ketola, 27, was scheduled to have five or six kidney stones removed on Thursday at Ottawa's Montfort Hospital, but the surgery has been postponed and she doesn't know when it will be rescheduled.

She is among an untold number of patients left in limbo after Ontario ordered hospitals across most of the province to stop performing all but emergency and life-saving surgeries due to the growing caseload of COVID-19 patients.

Her kidney stones are too big to pass on her own, she said, and she's now suffering anxiety attacks while also trying to care for her two young children.

"I feel anxiety that just at any time I'm about to have an attack and I'll have to leave my baby for seven, eight hours, maybe longer," said Ketola, who's still nursing her four-month-old son.

WATCH | The pain of a delayed surgery:

Considering going to U.S.

Ketola, an American citizen whose husband is in the U.S. Navy, is considering travelling to the United States for surgery. The family has been stationed in Ottawa on a personnel exchange for the past two years.

Ketola's doctor, urologist James Wong, said cancelled surgeries are especially tough on patients who have already been waiting months.

"There are patients out there that have things that may end up being life-threatening at some point, and that's really where the danger lies," Wong said.

"There are a subset of people out there that don't fall into the category of imminently urgent, but you know within the next few weeks are probably pretty critical."

WATCH | What it's been like at the Montfort Hospital:

A 'failing' system

Merrickville, Ont., resident David Wood, 40, is in a life-threatening situation, and is worried the health-care system won't be able to help him in time.

In 2018, Wood was diagnosed with a rare genetic mutation that causes his DNA to grow tumours in his large intestine. At the time, Wood was working as a prototype development engineer in Germany and underwent a colectomy to remove all but 10 centimetres of his colon.

He had regular post-operative checkups and was given the all-clear in October, only to find out earlier this month that a large Stage 3 tumour had developed on his remaining colon.

Wood said he wasn't able to book a consultation with a surgeon until the end of April, and has been told the surgery itself may not be for another four to six weeks after that.

"So we're talking two months, and if it's gone from nothing to Stage 3 in six months, adding another two months doesn't leave you a very good recovery percentage," Wood said.

Wood said he, too, has the means to travel outside the country for surgery, but he worries for other people who don't have that option.

Dr. Virginia Roth, chief of staff at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), said there's a clear set of criteria for delaying surgeries. Under those guidelines, emergency trauma and time-sensitive cancer surgery should not be postponed.

Wood said the latest wave of COVID-19 may not have anything to do with his own situation, but he still believes it's unacceptable, and he worries the pandemic will only make things worse.

"It feels like the system is so broken that it's going to cost some people their lives," Wood said.