B.C. resident Michelle Fedyshyn has been waiting almost four months and counting for the results of her latest pap test.
She had the test done on July 5. Not knowing the result is nerve-wracking, she said.
Fedyshyn always makes it a point to stay on top of her health because when she was 28, she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.
“So for me to take care of my health-care and go for these cancer screenings we’re supposed to, I always try to stay on top of that, just for my own health. Not having results four months later is very anxiety-provoking and it can be triggering not knowing what my results could possibly be from a pending pap test that I go to every two years,” she told Global News.
“Cervical cancer and leukemia are not correlated but just having a cancer history, it is very anxiety-provoking not knowing what your results are, even though they are likely clear, it’s something you wish you would get back right away.”
Dr. Anna Wolak, a family physician in Vancouver and a clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, said she has been warning her patients for months about the backlog in test results.
She said she is seeing a lot of patients coming in for pap tests who perhaps delayed it during the pandemic, leading to an increase in screening requirements.
“Personally, I’ve been signing off on paps that, the reports I’ve received in the last week … on paps that I’ve done in May or June even,” Wolak told Global News. “So we’re talking five, six months wait time and that’s rare. I’m used to doing a pap and telling my patients ‘oh yes, we’ll get the results back in a couple of weeks’ and now I’m having to tell them ‘put this in your calendar because if you haven’t heard back from me in four to six months, I’m going to need to chase it up’ but anything before that, I’m just going to be told there’s a backlog.”
Wolak said the delay can be problematic.
The delay could cause someone to forget they haven’t seen those results yet and the follow-up with the patient would be lost.
Another issue would be if a pap needs repeating within a certain timeframe, she added.
“I worry that if this backlog continues and I start to get paps back eight months later and the report says ‘do the pap six months from now’ well, you could have told me that earlier,” Wolak said.
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In a statement to Global News, Provincial Lab Medicine Services executive leader Craig Ivany said they, along with BC Cancer, aim to provide timely cervical screening results to all patients and their care providers.
“We have faced challenges in meeting target wait times for results as a result of various factors, including an increase in cervical screening since spring 2021 (with individuals resuming regular asymptomatic cervical screening amid lessening COVID restrictions) and a shortage of specialized lab professionals who can evaluate conventional pap test results,” Ivany said.
Since 2021, they have been taking action in order to try and reduce the backlog.
They are triaging tests based on urgency, as well as introducing an additional alternative cervical cancer collection method called liquid-based cytology (LBC) and as of Oct. 17, 2022, the Cervical Cancer Screening Laboratory (CCSL) has begun expediting a provincial shift to exclusive use of LBC tests.
“This will expedite a return to the pre-pandemic benchmark of processing 90 per cent of cervix screening samples within 20 days of receipt,” Ivany added.
Wolak said she knows everyone is working hard to resolve the issues.
“A lot of it, from the processing standpoint, unfortunately, there really isn’t much that we can do,” she said. “But a patient, you can come for your screening and make a note of it and give yourself three or four months (to follow up).”
Fedyshyn hasn’t been given a time frame for when her results will come back but she’s hoping, for peace of mind, it is soon.
“I’ve heard (from) other women, it’s taken six months to get their results, I have no idea,” she said.
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