Thana Singh Khosa holding the X-rays of both of his knees, depicting the pre and post surgery result in Chestermere on Friday, May 24, 2024. Khosa returned to Canada last week, after getting his Total Knee Replacement surgery done from India. He was put on a waitlist for two years for surgery in Canada. (Photo by Uddamveer Singh/The Press)
Thana Singh Khosa holding the X-rays of both of his knees, depicting the pre and post surgery result in Chestermere on Friday, May 24, 2024. Khosa returned to Canada last week, after getting his Total Knee Replacement surgery done from India. He was put on a waitlist for two years for surgery in Canada. (Photo by Uddamveer Singh/The Press)[/caption]
Increased wait times to get a surgery have led many Indian Canadians fly to India and get their surgery done instead of waiting for several months or in some cases even years.
Although being ranked one of the highest in the world, Canada’s healthcare system is facing huge troubles. As patients, who need to get a surgery are left with just one option to wait for their turn, while still suffering from the pain from their medical conditions.
Thana Singh Khosa, a 66-year-old Indian Canadian recently traveled to India to get his total knee replacement surgery done, Khosa was in the waitlist for the surgery and had to wait for 24 months to get one of his knees replaced.
“I would recommend going to any country to get the surgery done right away because if you have that problem, it's very painful, it's very hard.” said Khosa’. “So, any country, India or anywhere, just go and get done.”
According to albertaboneandjoint.com, there are two different waiting periods. The wait for the surgeon consult and the wait to receive surgery. There are several ways to describe waiting times -:
LONGEST 10%: (also called the 90th percentile) captures the point at which 90 percent of people received service. It describes the upper limit of time that one can expect to wait.
AVERAGE: mathematical mean; describes the typical wait one can expect.
SHORTEST 25%: the point at which the fastest quarter of people received service. This describes the quickest one can expect to wait.
As from the data between January 2024 to March 2024, in Calgary the wait time for surgeon’s consult is 69.7 weeks for ‘average’ slot. The wait for knee surgery is around 38 weeks. If the wait times of both the consultancy and surgery period is added, it is about 108 weeks, which is more than two years and a month.
Fortunately, the wait times have decreased about 17% for consultancy and 25% for the knee surgery from last year, but there is still a lot to be done to make a notable difference.
Sunil Singla, a chiropractor, practicing in Nova Scotia Autism in Halifax talked about his experience. “Actually, there is a lot of waiting time in order to manage the conditions, such as orthopedics, so patients cannot bear such type of pain as well as the weakness of their limbs.” said Singla
“But for that, for the longer times, so they need to go to the home country or these Asian countries in that place, they get the treatment as soon as possible.”
It is important to know that the Alberta government covers some parts of medical procedures even outside Canada. While, the coverage is limited but still offers some relief to the patients.