MONTREAL - The sad reality of the current state of Montreal medicine is that by the time one gets under the knife, it might be too late.
Health professionals are increasingly blowing the whistle on the dangerous trend that could cause lives.
Dr. John Bray notes that one of his cancer patients was recently forced to wait two months to get emergency surgery.
"You can't stop cancer. You can't just say, ‘cancer take a break while I do this,' You have to go after it and treat those patients," said Bray.
The McGill University Health Centre says that only about half of surgeries are done within an acceptable time-frame.
Last year the issue came to light when patient Nicole Valcourt said that a delay she was forced to endure had led her condition to worsen to incurable.
"Dying is normal," she said at the time. "But not like this because I should have been operated on sooner so I could live," she said.
She launched a malpractice suit and her lawyer said that it's a situation that can be remedied by better administration.
"Management at all levels should understand that they cannot work in isolation. They are part of a network and what they cannot provide in their own institutions, they must see if it could be provided elsewhere," said Menard.
The MUHC is attempting to tackle the delays by increasing the number of hours doctors have in the operation room.
But it's not a manpower issue, according to one medic.
"The limiting factor is not surgeon availability," said Dr. Maciej Kalina of the MUHC. "The limiting factor is the availability of operating rooms with full nursing staff, recovery rooms, beds at the hospital."
As well as the obvious physical dangers involved in delaying surgery, delays also constitutes a sort of mental cruelty, as well, says Bray.
"You have to think of the person sitting at home waiting for all this, it's not fair to her," he said.
