Order of B.C. recipient paid $28,000 plus travel expenses for hip replacement surgery in Alberta

In her long career, Tracy Porteous was awarded the Order of B.C. and the Queens Diamond Jubilee medal for her work on gender-based violence. Recently retired, the 64-year-old’s nagging hip pain got drastically worse in July.

“I was on holidays on Salt Spring and suddenly I could not walk down the driveway even four steps,” said Porteous.

Already on the hip replacement wait list, she met with an orthopaedic surgeon at Rebalance MD clinic in Victoria.

“He said he could see that my femur head was partially collapsed, and he would do the surgery right away. So that was August 28.”

But weeks passed and Porteous didn’t get a surgery date. The CEO of Rebalance MD, Stefan Fletcher said it’s not for lack of trying.

“Sadly there are patients much like Tracy who are urgent, and there are so many of them, we can’t get them all in the at the same time,” said Fletcher.

Not able to walk and on strong opioids for pain, Porteous decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She decided to pay for private hip replacement surgery in Calgary.

“It’s a small clinic with two very state-of-the-art operating rooms, so they do eight surgeries a day, I think it’s twice a week. So there were eight of us that came up that day, and half of us were from British Columbia,” said Porteous.

She paid $28,000 for the operation and $6,000 for travel and lodging, debt she was forced to add to her mortgage.

“We are seeing this quite often sadly, patients are going all over the country for private surgical options,” said Fletcher, who added it’s a huge financial burden.

“I have heard so many stories of elderly parents talking to their families and their families saying, listen, don’t leave us any inheritance, you go and get this done, you need to improve the quality of life,” said Fletcher. “So we know it’s happening all the time, and more certainty right now, because we can’t give any certainty on dates.”

Fletcher said Rebalance surgeons have the capacity to do more, but there aren’t enough nurses to staff operating rooms and recovery wards at hospitals, a problem that has persisted since the pandemic.

“We can’t even keep up, let alone catch up. And so there needs to be some sort of an innovative solution which is sustainable, because this is going to continue to happen. We have more people that we are being put on the list than taken off the list, and we are still so far behind,” said Fletcher.

He would like to see B.C. allow private clinics to do joint replacement surgeries within the public system, like Alberta.

“We believe that the public health care system in the hospital setting can’t cope, so we are looking at a private clinic delivering in the public system. We believe there is a solution that’s sustainable,” Fletcher said.

Porteous agrees. “If the writing’s on the wall and that’s what other people are doing, then we need to be taking a good hard look at it,” she said.

She’s relieved her surgery is finally behind her, but she knows not everyone can pay out of pocket.

“The only reason that I’m speaking up is that I’m one of the privileged people. My hip is done. I went forward because I could afford it,” Porteous said. “But what about all of the thousands of people who can’t afford it?”