In August 2019, in the softball league, his friends noticed that his breathing sounded laborious. In the end, after passing through the circuit of different experts in Caledon, Ontario, people were told that his airway was blocked and he needed a CT scan.

By February 2020, this was the cusp of the pandemic, and the Ontario government quickly closed all elective surgeries and procedures. Therefore, Perkins had to wait.

As the weather gets warmer and humidity rises, breathing becomes more and more difficult.

“It’s like trying to breathe, like sucking a thick milkshake.”

Perkins finally received a CT scan at the end of May 2020, and the results showed that the “large” tumor had removed 70% to 80% of his airway.

He was designated as a grade 1 patient, Province definition It is expressed as “Any situation that cannot be diagnosed and started treatment will result in serious morbidity/death.”

Nevertheless, he still had to wait another three months to get a biopsy.

Perkins is not alone-the backlog of surgery in Ontario is estimated to be more More than 257,000 cases and still growing.Same as the first wave The province told the hospital last month Suspend non-emergency procedures to free up ICU beds because of the surge in COVID cases during the third wave.

Until now, research has begun to reveal some of the possible consequences of these delays.

Too many deaths

According to a Research published last week According to Ontario’s COVID-19 Scientific Consultation Form, these delays may cause excessive deaths in the province.

After analyzing the cremation data in Ontario, the study found that the number of deaths during the pandemic increased by nearly 13% compared to the baseline average for the period from 2017 to 2019.

The scientific leader of the consultation form, Dr. Peter Juni, a co-author of the study, said that some of these deaths are almost certainly due to COVID-19, but not so, especially in the first wave, where the tests were not so good. universal. .

He said that although the research data did not include the cause of death, many of the additional deaths may not be related to COVID because they occurred between the peaks of the pandemic when the number of deaths from the virus was low.

Juni said: “In the already strained healthcare system, we are beginning to see people are trying to…seek proper care.” Dr. Brian Goldman, Moderator Dose and white coat, black art.

The main causes of these additional deaths may be cancer and cardiovascular diseases because they are The two main causes of death Juni said that in Western countries, both “we know that if you delay care, it will have a negative impact on the prognosis.”

He said that due to fear of contracting COVID-19, the decline in emergency room visits during the pandemic may also be a factor in these overdose deaths, he said.

Some good news’

A kind The new research was published this week in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association Studies have shown that in the first wave of the pandemic, common cases of emergency department visits (such as appendicitis, miscarriage, gallbladder seizures, and ectopic pregnancy) are significantly reduced.

The researchers compared the emergency department visits in Ontario from the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2019, examining these four conditions-these conditions were chosen because they are measurable, very common, and managed in a standard way . During the first wave of the pandemic, they found that the number of visits for appendicitis and miscarriage decreased by 20% to 39%.

But the study also found something surprising-the prognosis of patients with these conditions has not been affected. Although there are fewer emergency room visits, there is no increase in unfavorable patient outcomes, such as more severe cases after appearing in the emergency room or increased mortality.

The co-author of the study, David Gomez, an acute care and trauma surgeon and a scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, has a theory to explain why this is the case: the emergency room before the pandemic May be overused.

“It doesn’t mean [people] Now I just suffer at home.

Gomez said, for example, mild appendicitis can be resolved at home or managed through virtual medical visits.

“Many of the care provided by the emergency department may be very effective, and may be more timely, and can be managed in a variety of other ways, including emergency care centers, virtual visits, [and] It extends the time of primary care practitioners,” he said.

Gomez said that avoiding emergency rooms will definitely have a negative impact on certain situations, but he said these findings remind people that the pandemic’s impact on the healthcare system is “not all bad news.”

When we stand out from the pandemic, Gomez believes that we will see more evidence of the healthcare system, and in some cases, such as virtual medicine, has been adapted and transformed, and these changes are “hopefully expected over time The passage of time will continue.”

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to truly re-evaluate the delivery of care at all levels.”

Watch | Ontario’s backlog of surgeries has brought uncertain waiting times for cancer patients:

The COVID-19 pandemic has backlogged more than 250,000 surgical procedures in Ontario, including cancer operations, forcing patients to wait for potentially life-saving operations. 2:03

A difficult task

Perkins finally underwent an open biopsy in August last year, a year after his first symptoms appeared.

The tumor was benign, and in October, he underwent surgery to remove it. However, Perkins said that he and his family had to go through months of life without knowing whether they had cancer.

According to Perkins, the target time for CT scans for patients with priority 1 (such as Perkins) Quality of hygiene in Ontario, It was within 24 hours after receiving the order, not the three months he waited. (As of March 2021, Province tracking website It shows that 78% of patients were scanned within the target time. )

He said: “Although I am a patient with first-degree respiratory disease and unable to breathe, it took me more than seven months to perform a biopsy and nine months to remove the tumor.”

“In this case, the tumor is benign… If it is malignant, just waiting is enough to kill me.”

The province has resumed “non-emergency” operations, and the Ontario government has pledged to provide 300 million yuan in the 2021 budget to help reduce the backlog of operations.

But Juni said that the stretched medical system “cannot” keep up with time to save everyone’s “long and long waiting list.”

“In a healthcare system that has been truly challenged, these additional deaths are likely to continue to extend beyond the pandemic.”

Written and produced by Willow Smith.