Surgery wait times for deadly ovarian, cervical and breast cancers in Québec are three times longer than government benchmarks, leading some desperate patients to shop around for an operating room. But that’s a waste of time, doctors say, since the problem is spread across Québec hospitals. And doctors are refusing to accept new patients quickly because they can’t treat them, health advocates say.
The worst cases are gynecological cancers, experts say, because usually such a cancer has already spread by the time it is detected. Instead of four weeks from diagnosis to surgery, patients are waiting as long as three months to have cancerous growths removed.
“It’s a crisis for Québec women,” said Lucy Gilbert, director of gynecological oncology and the gynecologic cancer multi-disciplinary team at the McGill University Health Center. Her team has had access to operating rooms only two days a week for the past year, with dozens of patients having surgeries postponed week after week. …
(Excerpt) Read more at montrealgazette.com ...
