Questioning the Health Minister on surgical wait times, and preventive health responsibilities.

 On Friday May 20, I asked questions in Estimates to Audrey Gordon, the Minister of Health on how she is addressing the long waits for surgeries.   My questions and the Minister's responses are below.

 

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Yes, thank you for the op­por­tun­ity.

      I'd like to start with several questions dealing with the backlog in eye surgeries.

      In the infor­ma­tion provided earlier today from the minister, there were contracts to vision health and to Western Surgery.

      Was there money also provided to the Misericordia eye centre? And how–what's the minis­ter's view, moving forward, of what the balance will be in terms of surgeries done at the three locations?

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for River Heights for the question.

      The request for supply arrangement is the process by which the service delivery organi­zations and hos­pitals can make requests above their baseline funding for these types of surgeries.

      To date, Misericordia has not submitted a pro­posal, and I'm seeing that today–as of today, they have performed–they are at 107.3 per cent of their pre-COVID capacity. Prior to that, what I do see is that the regions are globally funded to provide dollars to their various surgical slates. And, obviously, due to COVID, they were not able to reach their baseline. But, again, I see, as of today, they're at 107.3 per cent.

      So, I don't–I can understand why we haven't seen an RFSA come forward from the Misericordia be­cause, during the pandemic, they were below their base­line funding for their eye surgeries. So, the answer is, we do fund them and we can provide beyond–and the regions can, as well, go beyond the baseline funding, but the Misericordia was not at their baseline.

      But today, again, very pleased to see they are above 100 per cent, and I'm sure that will continue to be the case going forward.

      Thank you.

Mr. Gerrard: I thank the minister for that answer.

      Now, it's my under­standing that there are approxi­mate­ly 9,000 people waiting for eye surgery and that's, I think, primarily, perhaps almost exclusively, cataracts.

      I wonder what the minister's goal is over time: probably not to reduce that to zero but to reduce it to a low number. What would that number be? Or, to reduce the waiting times, and if it's a goal to reduce the waiting times down to a certain level, what would that be?

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for River Heights (Mr. Gerrard) for his sup­ple­mentary question related to eye surgeries.

      The Wait Times Reduction Task Force report in 2017 did call for–had a recom­men­dation that called for an infusion of dollars for priority procedures, which included eye surgeries. And that is why our gov­ern­ment has added $10 million to the budget for the de­part­ment to provide for these priority proced­ures.

      And, imme­diately, in 2018, which is just the year following the Wait Times Reduction Task Force's report, our gov­ern­ment added 2,000 ad­di­tional cataract procedures to help reduce the wait times. Again, we thank all the service providers, including Misericordia hospital, western vision centre and others that are assisting with reducing the wait times for eye surgeries.

      The current task force and the experts that are part of that task force will provide advice on the ap­pro­priate volumes and levels going forward to reduce the–and, really, our goal is always to eliminate, because for one individual who's waiting, their ability to carry out a fully rewarding life is impacted. So it is always our goal to eliminate, but certainly our focus is on reducing very quickly the wait-lists for in­dividuals that are waiting for eye surgeries that could include cataract surgeries, and we look to all our service delivery organi­zations.

      If, at this time, the Misericordia Health Centre or hospital feels that they want to put forward a request for a supply arrangement proposal–we're issuing that request, it will be going out and we accept proposals. And eye surgeries are certainly part of the volumes that we want to see increased and the waits decreased.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Gerrard: I thank the minister for that comment and for that answer.

      There's a bit of an interesting situation happening, in terms of how the wait times are calculating, as I understand it, for eye surgery. Many of the cataract procedures, there would be two surgical procedures, one for each eye because both eyes would need to have their cataracts addressed.

      And so a person, for example, might come in and see an ophthalmologist, have the recognition that there's two surgeries. That person then waits, let's say, 32 weeks for the surgery on the first eye, and then the person waits an ad­di­tional, say, four weeks, for the second eye.

      So, the first eye, there's been a wait of 32 weeks; the second eye there's been a wait of 36 weeks. But, in fact, what is being calculated is the second eye wait time is only after the first eye is done, so it's calculated as four weeks.

      So you end up with an average of those two wait times being reported as 32 plus four, 36. Average is 18 weeks instead of the average being an average of 32 and 36 weeks, which would be 34 weeks.

      So it seems to people who are actually receiving surgery that the wait time being shown is actually shorter than what they're ex­per­iencing.

      I wonder if the minister would comment or be prepared to have a look at that and see if there could be some changes.

      Thank you.

Ms. Gordon: I thank the hon­our­able member for River Heights for bringing that forward.

      This is some­thing that the min­is­try and the de­part­ment and the task force is working col­lab­o­ratively to review. We're looking for a standard approach that is similar to what CIHI uses, which is a national ap­proach to how we calculate the wait times for not just cataracts included, but other procedures as well. And right now, we're very heavily focused, as well, on diagnostics. I think Dr. Matear shared some infor­ma­tion at the press conference yesterday about that.

      But, yes, we are committed to taking a look at this and developing a standard approach. It will align with the national approach being taken by the Canadian Insti­tute for Health Infor­ma­tion.

      Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Mr. Gerrard: A fairly quick question because we don't have much time left.

      Is the respon­si­bility for preventing diabetes with the Minister of Health (Ms. Gordon) or is it with the minister of mental health and wellness?

Ms. Gordon: The response to the member's question is that primary pre­ven­tion rests with the min­is­try of  com­mu­nity–Mental Health and Com­mu­nity Wellness, and secondary pre­ven­tion, because that often involves prac­ti­tioners in the clinical and health system, lies here in the min­is­try of Health.

The Acting Chairperson (James Teitsma): In the 15 seconds that remain, would the hon­our­able member for River Heights (Mr. Gerrard) like to ask some­thing else?

Mr. Gerrard: Just perhaps, for next time, the minister could give me an answer about what that secondary pre­ven­tion effort under her de­part­ment looks like.

The Acting Chairperson (James Teitsma): Order.

      The time for our meeting this morning has come to an end. I thank the members for their co‑operation and good behaviour.

      And, the time being 12:30, com­mit­tee rise.