'The waiting lists are crippling': Surgeon frustrated over delay in reopening Carman operating room

After being closed for more than a month, the hospital in Carman, Man. will soon be reopening its doors – but not all units will be back in operation.

The Carman Memorial Hospital is an important fixture in the town of about 3,000 people. It's been closed since January 4, to repair the ventilation system.

With the work nearly done, Surgeon Dr. Gerry Clayden said patients will be welcomed back starting next week, but not for any surgical care as the operating room is staying closed.

"If I could wave a magic wand and get the operating room up and running on the same day we open the emergency department, that would be fantastic," Clayden said. "At the moment the waiting lists are crippling, and simply the system is broken."

Part of Clayden's frustration is that there is no timeline for when the Carman operating room could reopen.

"The most frustrating thing is, firstly I am seeing new patients and I can't tell them when I am going to be able to treat them, and that is very difficult," he said.

In a statement to CTV News, a spokesperson for Shared Health said surgeries at the Carman Memorial Hospital will resume when demands elsewhere in the system have subsided.

"Surgical volumes will be added across the system in an order guided by clinical experts, patient needs, and availability of appropriate staffing," they said.

Shared Health also said all surgeries were postponed at the facility on December 23, 2021, and staff were redeployed to support other facilities in the southern region.

Clayden said the Carman operating room only needs three full-time staff to operate. With the pandemic's pressure on the system decreasing, he'd like more information.

"At least give us some time when they can indicate to us when they are going to reopen the operating room. At the moment they just simply said in several weeks they'll look at it again," he said.

As of Monday, Doctors Manitoba estimates the surgical and diagnostic backlog due to COVID-19 to be more than 153,000 in the province.

Clayden said the Carman operating room can do 1,500 procedures a year, with half of those being colonoscopies – a small piece of the puzzle he admits, but said people are waiting with serious and potentially life-threatening conditions like hernias and pre-cancerous polyps.