Winnipeg man among 40,000 facing surgical delays amid Manitoba’s healthcare crisis

A Winnipeg man has waited years in pain and is desperate to have life changing surgery, but right now he’s one of over 40-thousand Manitobans who are also in the same boat, facing surgical disruptions or cancellations.

Manitoba sits in second for the largest surgical backlog in Canada.

Chart shows surgical backlogs in Canada (Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information)

“When I went to Alberta in March to go to the Vesia Urological Clinic and was told that surgery not only needs to happen soon, but should have happened in 2021,” said Paul Kinasevych, Patient waiting for surgery.

“It feels almost like I died three years ago and now I am a ghost,” said Kinasevych.

Paul Kinasevych sit downs with CityNews to talk about battling his illness while he waits for life changing surgery (Credit: Mitchell Ringos)

Since 2021, when Paul Kinasevych was first diagnosed, he has been put on every form of medication and remedy to avoid surgery. After three years, he can no longer work and is in constant pain, one of his doctors has run out of ideas.

Daily medication Kinasevych to help with pain. (Credit: Mitchell Ringos)

“During covid I went into sepsis I had an acute case of epididymitis, which is an infection of the right testicle and sperm duct which in my case would be the right-hand side,” said Kinasevych.

Kinasevych is left with no other option than surgery, especially after speaking to a specialist in Alberta.

“He said at the Pan Am Pain Clinic, they’ve exhausted their abilities to help me,” said Kinasevych.

Kinasevych was finally given an appointment for a consultation after waiting for months, only for the health science’s centre’s urology department to cancel it. It’s left Kinasevych feeling hopeless, and he knows the longer this takes his pain will only get worse.

“Now though I am having cardiac issues, I can barely walk, going to the bathrooms is agonizing and I don’t know when it will end,” said Kinasevych.

This has forced Kinasevych to take matters into his own hands, as he plans to go on a hunger strike for national pain week in early November. Not only is it a way to highlight the need for his own surgery, but for others who are living with chronic pain in Canada.

Kinasevych story comes at a time that surgical backlog in Manitoba sits at over 40 thousand, roughly 40 percent of a pre pandemic year of surgery volumes. While health services were able to shave 1000 from the 2022-23 backlog, doctors of Manitoba says it is not enough.

“The population has grown 5 or 6 percent over that time, then 1 percent is not enough and there’s still more work to do,” said Dr. Randy Guzman, President of Doctors Manitoba and a Vascular Surgeon.

CityNews reached out to the province which responded on Monday saying, “No one deserves to wait in pain, and it is critical that we continue our efforts to expand capacity in the system. These numbers reflect the previous government’s record in healthcare.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara continued by saying, “They failed to listen to experts and frontline workers, forcing so many folks to wait in pain. We’re doing the work to build up healthcare in Manitoba. We’ve added staffed beds throughout the system, hired 873 net-new healthcare workers, and developed a new surgical waitlist information management system (SWIMs) that prioritizes the longest waiters first. It’s going to take a long time to reverse the damage the previous government left behind, but we have made significant progress in our first year.”