It all started with an email from Dominique, Anne-Marie Simard’s partner:
“My blonde, 41, mother of an 11-year-old girl has stage 4 cancer which has responded really well to chemotherapy. After eight months of treatment, she is now operable. This means that his life expectancy goes from months to years. Maybe enough to watch her daughter come of age. But the load shedding has now canceled his surgery ”.
The bad news arrived on Monday. The hospital informed Anne-Marie that her surgery on January 18, to remove the cancerous mass in her colon, was canceled due to the load shedding, which frees up beds and staff to deal with the 5th wave of COVID .
No new surgery date has been given to her and she has not spoken to a doctor since.
« We have a great feeling of injustice, of inequity. Why do we prioritize COVID patients over other treatments that are just as necessary? »
Anne-Marie Simard thought to be “priority”. Today it is found “in nothingness”. It’s “stressful,” she says. “Is it going to be in a month?” In six months? “
Everything was planned and calculated, she explains, “the timing is very important “. She finished her chemotherapy treatment in mid-December. Between Christmas and New Years, she had radiation therapy to clear metastases in her lungs.
“I no longer have the effect of chemo on my body, so the more the weeks go by, the more it can spread again in my body,” she worries. “By stretching this out, if the metastases start to spread again, maybe I won’t be operable anymore. “
« Maybe I’ll skip it because of it. […] It’s frustrating that half of the people hospitalized are unvaccinated. It’s frustrating that the rest of us are paying for this. »
The McGill University Health Center (MUHC), where Anne-Marie is to be operated on, declined to comment on a particular case. “At the moment, the surgical activities of the CUSM continue at around 50% in most areas on adult sites, ”says Head of Communications, Gilda Salomone.
“A prioritization committee is in place to ensure that the situation of each patient on hold is properly analyzed,” explains the spokesperson. “This system allows us to identify patients in need of urgent surgeries, including cardiac and oncologic surgeries, and any that can be performed are. “
A medical source at CUSM confirms that cancer surgeries have indeed been canceled and that teams are striving to treat cases one after another, starting from the most serious.
“Very worrying”, say oncologists
“There are beginning to be reports which vary from one institution to another,” confirms the president of the Association of hematologists and oncologists of Quebec, Martin Champagne.
“This situation will become present in the coming weeks,” he warns. “It is very worrying”.
Martin Champagne explains that the “growing difficulties” are twofold for cancer surgeries. First, the need to provide a safe environment for immunosuppressed people in hospitals with outbreaks can delay access for these patients. Then there is the challenge of accessibility to technical facilities and beds in the current context.
As of January 1, 2022, a total of 3,845 patients were awaiting surgery for cancer, according to data from the Quebec Ministry of Health.
« As the delays increase, there is a price to pay. It is expected that there will be an increase in cancer mortality for several years. »
Even before the 5th wave of COVID-19 hit, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) found that cancer screening fell 25% to 35% with the pandemic.
“Patients whose symptoms do eventually appear will be much sicker and more resources will be needed to treat them,” explained the CMA. “And the outcome, for them, is likely to be more serious than if they had been treated earlier. “