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Teen's bad break
Curtis Brown
Local News
BRANDONSUN
Friday, April 15 2005
1202Pets can get better health care than people in rural areas, says an angry Hartney-area mom.
Christina Roper wants answers after watching her 15-year-old son Jordan wait in excruciating pain for five days before an orthopedic specialist in ******* was able to treat the leg Jordan broke during a hockey game last weekend.
"Our dog broke his leg last year. We paid $1,200, but at least he got surgery the next day. We had to wait five days for Jordan ... and I would have been willing to pay an insurance premium or something to have it done sooner," Christina said.
******* will be without orthopedic coverage for most of the month of April as two of the city's three orthopedic surgeons write medical fellowship exams, said Dr. Andrew Baron, vice-president of medical services for the ******* Regional Health Authority.
Jordan was playing in the prestigious Directors' Cup hockey tournament in Souris last weekend. About 10 minutes into a game Saturday, he caught the edge of his skate between the bottom of the ice and the board and ended up breaking both his tibia and fibula right above the top of his skate.
"It was just a freak thing, playing hockey," Jordan said. "It just hurt a lot."
He was carried off the ice in a stretcher and taken to Souris Health Centre, where his doctor put his leg in a back slab and told him he would need to see an orthopedic surgeon.
But the Ropers had to wait until Wednesday, while Jordan was on morphine in Souris hospital, before they could see a specialist in ******* who could operate and put Jordan's leg into a proper cast.
"You hear of people who need hip replacements and I realize they're backlogged. But in our case, the fact that he had to wait for five days on morphine just seems inhumane," Christina said.
Baron said with the current complement of specialists, the region generally has no orthopedic coverage every third weekend. If a doctor is sick or on holidays, that period could run longer.
Unlike in other specialties, the ******* RHA doesn't bring in doctors from other places to fill in the gaps in orthopedic coverage.
Baron said the situation is better than it was a year ago when there were only two doctors, but acknowledged there's still a problem that will be fixed only when the city finds another orthopedic specialist.
"It's a concern and I think we should have on-call coverage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We're working on that, we're not there yet and we'll get there by having another orthopedic surgeon," Baron said.
The only days the city will be covered for the rest of this month are April 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26.
The provincial NDP government has been frequently criticized by the opposition for not doing enough to recruit specialists.
Health Minister Tim Sale has said the problem is a severe shortage of specialists across the country. He insists the province will work with regional health authorities to ring foreign-trained doctors here will encourage rural Manitobans to get into medicine by opening up more spaces at the University of Manitoba medical school.
Baron said orthopedic surgeons can be hard to recruit as many graduating doctors specialize in a specific orthopedic procedure. He said the doctor he finds needs to be able to do many types of surgeries.
"We have to get (an orthopedic surgeon) who meets the needs of *******," Baron said.
But the Ropers' MLA, ***** Maguire, said this scenario makes him worry not just about people in rural Manitoba and whether they can get care in time, but also what effect the doctor shortage could have on rural communities trying to host events.
He's worried towns like Souris won't get big tournaments like the Director's Cup if organizers realize there isn't adequate medical care nearby if something goes wrong.
"Small towns could lose out because there's no doctors. This doesn't auger well for us outside Winnipeg if we're trying to get these events in the future," he said.
cbrown@brandonsun.com