Patient calls wait time to see specialist at Kingston hospital ‘ridiculous’

Simple tasks like making lunch can be daunting for Doug Bonner, a Kingston resident who suffers from a severe case of psoriasis that covers much of his scalp.

“It affects my life all the time. It drives me crazy,” he said.

Bonner has been waiting to see a dermatologist for the past 16 months and is the latest patient to come forward with concerns about wait times to see specialists at two Kingston Health Sciences hospitals: Kingston General and Hotel Dieu.

“I have no idea how long this is going to take and meanwhile I’m suffering from this and nothing is being done,” said Bonner in his Kingston home.

It’s not just psoriasis taking a toll on his health, he also has a pustular skin disorder, an infection in his hands that causes swelling, rendering them unusable.

“For months, I couldn’t use my hands. I lost all of the skin on my hands and now I’m very sensitive to heat,” Bonner said.

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The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is looking into recent complaints about excessive wait times that, in some cases, exceed four years. This comes after a family physician went public with her concerns regarding wait times to see specialists, mainly neurologists.

“This appears to be something where there are some unique circumstances at Kingston General or in Kingston that’s why I’ve asked my Ministry to look into that direction,” said Dr. Eric Hoskins, the province’s health minister.

Executives at Kingston Health Sciences say all cases needing review by specialists at both hospitals are prioritized by severity.

Patients whose conditions worsen are often moved up that list according to Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, the chief of staff at Kingston Health Sciences.

“This is not a Kingston-centric problem; this is a Canada-wide problem,” he said.

The problem is that recruiting doctors and attracting physicians, mainly specialists, to small urban cities like Kingston is no easy feat. Recruiters are competing with hospitals not only in North America but around the world.

“We’ve been pretty successful in recruitment although there are pockets where the wait times are long and we’re still working assiduously on those areas to try to meet those gaps,” said Fitzpatrick.

And that’s not necessarily the answer people like Bonner want to hear. He’s convinced Ontario’s health-care system is broken.

“If we went to Britain, United States there would not be this kind of wait time. It just wouldn’t happen,” Bonner said.