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Ongoing medical care delays have left a Swan River resident with the dubious distinction of the longest wait for a surgical bone repair at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre all while bearing witness to the chaos of last weekend’s glut of emergency patients.

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Ongoing medical care delays have left a Swan River resident with the dubious distinction of the longest wait for a surgical bone repair at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre all while bearing witness to the chaos of last weekend’s glut of emergency patients.

Tiffany Kematch was sent to Health Sciences Centre for surgery after she broke her knee and leg 11 days ago, but her appointments have been cancelled and rescheduled multiple times.

Staff told her she now has the longest wait for such a surgical procedure in the hospital’s history.

Swan River resident Tiffany Kematch sits in a wheel chair with a broken knee and leg outside Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre, where she is awaiting surgery, on Wednesday. (Jessica Lee/Winnipeg Free Press)

“It was supposed to be appointment upon arrival, and they had me wait in ER for 14 hours, and now here I am 11 days later,” she said. “My knee is partially shattered down to my shin and it’s going to need plates and screws in there to put it back together. It’s only an hour-long surgery, so I don’t know why I’ve been waiting so long, but I understand they are short-staffed.”

During her time in the hospital, home to Manitoba’s largest emergency department, she has watched as staff struggled to keep up with high patient inflow, most notably this past weekend.

“People were in agony, crying in pain,” she said. “They have a triage there and they give people medication only one time, like a Tylenol, but can’t give any more. After such a long wait, medication only lasts for so long. Everyone in there is miserable with whatever they are dealing with.”

Some of those patients are waiting with broken bones like herself, she said.

CBC recently reported the hospital’s emergency department had no available beds last weekend, forcing people to wait sometimes days to be admitted. Shortages of staff, beds and medical equipment have been ongoing for months, but this past weekend saw a high number of patients waiting for care.

There were reports of at least 12 people lined up on stretchers in the department’s entrance hallway because there was no space inside.

It’s been like that the past two weekends she’s been at the hospital, Kematch said.

“It sounds like it’s getting worse every day,” she said. “I don’t know how they are ever going to fix this. I have a one-year-old [son] and he’s not allowed to visit me on the ward. I have to go outside to see him. We are five hours away, so I had to have him driven here.”

Her son isn’t allowed into the ward due to COVID-19 restrictions and the high patient volume.

Other patients have been telling Kematch similar stories of long waits. A woman that was in the same ward as Kematch told her she had come to the emergency department on Sunday, describing the scene as “hectic,” and she wasn’t admitted until Monday afternoon.

Kematch said she understands the health-care system needs more workers, but wonders where they are going to come from.

As of Wednesday, Kematch said she was discharged and sent to the Canad Inns across the road while she waits for the hospital to schedule her surgery. She also has family staying to care for her son.

They were trying to move her to HSC Women’s Hospital, which she said she didn’t want because she will be further away from her son.

“They said I could be waiting another three or four days, I don’t really know,” she said. “I have to wait in a hotel with my shattered knee because they need the bed I was in for someone else.”

She is worried the long wait to have her bones repaired will lead to permanent damage. She is in much less pain, needing only hydromorphone twice a day, but knows her body is automatically mending the bones that are not properly set. This will likely mean doctors will have to undo any healing the bones have done and reset them.

There is a lot of pressure on the province’s health system and there are patients awaiting surgery for longer periods than what is normal, said a spokesperson for Shared Health in an email.

“We appreciate the patience and understanding of all patients and encourage those with concerns to be in contact with their care team and/or our patient relations office,” they said.

The spokesperson couldn’t comment on specific cases, but did confirm that patients deemed stable while awaiting surgery are discharged and sent home to wait for their surgery date. In these instances, patients are given instructions and contacts if they need more support or reassessment. They are also provided oral medications to manage their pain.

If a patient is from a rural or northern area and deemed stable enough to manage their condition on their own, they may be housed in a nearby hotel. Once their surgery is scheduled, the hospital contacts the patient, who is then readmitted, the spokesperson said.

There was no comment on the influx of patients.

Doctors Manitoba didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.