After her three-year-old daughter had to wait more than 10 months for surgery on a painful hernia, a Victoria woman is speaking out about B.C.'s overloaded medical system.
Little Ruby Gittens was diagnosed with a hernia in November, but it wasn't until March that her mother Tess Barlow was able to get an appointment with a pediatric surgeon.
That appointment moved Ruby onto another waitlist. In the meantime, she developed a second hernia.
"For Ruby, it's upsetting because it should just be dealt with. It's something that's not right in her body and should be dealt with," Barlow told CTV News.
She said that there was only one pediatric surgeon working this summer in Victoria because a second was away on maternity leave. She was also told that a lack of operating space is to blame.
Ruby and her mother have just learned that she will have surgery on Sept. 8, but Barlow says that's an unacceptable wait time.
"It's been an aggravation for us but there are people out there who are probably feeling very fearful," she said.
"I don't really feel that you get a whole lot of information from anybody. I think that the groups that deal with the decisions being made are so large that they essentially can just pass blame back and forth."
The Vancouver Island Health Authority wouldn't comment specifically on Ruby's case, but says surgeries are based on priorities set by the surgeon, and on his or her available operating time.
Dr. Geoffrey Blair, a pediatric surgeon in Vancouver, says that children older than one year shouldn't have to wait more than three months for hernia surgery.
"A small number of children will have such severe pain that it indicates that a portion of intestine and perhaps a gonad -- ovary or testicle -- is tied up in their hernia, and its blood supply is compromised. That is a minority of children, but it's something we're mindful of," he said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jina You
