Burnaby Hospital took another hit today but this time from their own surgeons, who say they have lost confidence in the management of Fraser Health Authority (FHA) when it comes to the unacceptably long surgical waitlists.
There are 10 operating rooms, but according to Dr. David Jones, Burnaby Hospital’s former medical director and part of the surgical team, only six are being staffed and used.
It’s getting to the point that surgeons at Burnaby Hospital believe the hospital and its patients would be better served if they were under another health authority, like Vancouver Coastal Health or Providence Health Care.
“We have repeatedly documented the lack of resources that Fraser Health provides to Burnaby Hospital compared to other FHA sites,” Jones says.
“We’ve repeatedly asked for more resources to open more operating rooms so we can clear the backlog of patients on the waiting lists.”
According to reports, surgical wait lists at Burnaby Hospital are the longest of any hospital in the Lower Mainland. As a comparison, the wait time at Burnaby Hospital for gallbladder surgery is 58.5 weeks but only 10.8 weeks at Surrey Memorial. The wait for prostate surgery is 61.6 weeks in Burnaby versus 28.6 weeks in Surrey and ACL knee surgery is at 84.7 weeks compared to 23.1 weeks.
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“The provincial waitlist data clearly shows the FHA is failing to provide adequate resources to Burnaby Hospital to serve patients,” Jones says.
In a statement to Global News Dr. Peter Blair, program medical director for surgery at Fraser Health says making “broad-based comparisons between sites based on indicators, such as surgical registry patient data is not reflective of the complexity of the system nor the nature of the services provided at each hospital.”
“We know how hard it is to wait for surgery and it’s important that our patients are receiving their surgery as soon as possible,” Blair says.
“We continue to work with our physician partners to reduce surgical wait times by finding innovative solutions.”
Recently the FHA directed surgeons to review all bookings of patients on their surgical waitlist who have been waiting for longer than 40 weeks.
Jones said there’s an “insinuation” by the FHA that doctors have the “ability to book surgeries more quickly and reduce wait lists. When in fact, “it is solely the FHA that has the authority to open more operating rooms to bring Burnaby Hospital’s surgical waitlists in line with others in the Lower Mainland.” He points to repeated requests by Burnaby Hospital surgeons for proper FHA funding resources; which would allow the hospital to open some of the currently empty operating rooms and reduce the waitlist.
But Blair says each hospital in Fraser Health is “designed to deal with population needs of the community it serves, along with playing an important role in the larger network of hospitals in the region” and the “resources are distributed across sites depending on the level of care the hospital provides its patients.”
But Jones said it’s evident from the waitlist numbers “that the people of East Vancouver and Burnaby wait too long for their surgery.”
“Dr. Blair unfairly discounts the funding difference between Burnaby Hospital and Surrey Memorial by stating that Surrey is a regional hospital,” Jones says.
“Are the 465,000 people of East Vancouver and Burnaby not a region?”
According to the Concerned Surgeons of Burnaby Hospital, from Apr. 1 to Nov.1, 2014, they performed 4,280 surgeries compared to Surrey Memorial Hospital which did 4,358 surgeries, with half the funding.
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