Novel program reduces wait times

Toronto hospitals pool resources to ease gynecological surgery backlog

- MEGAN OGILVIE

Flora Kestin was able to get her surgery faster due to a new Toronto hospital initiative that prioritizes gynecological surgeries.

On the days that Flora Kestin felt her worst, she struggled to get out of bed.

Unrelenting pain and crushing fatigue — symptoms of endometriosis, a condition she’d had since her teens — meant she often could not work, keep up with household chores or even spend much time with her two young kids.

Kestin, now 28, knew a surgery to remove the excess tissue growing on her ovaries and Fallopian tubes could help. But her surgeon warned that backlogs meant she wouldn’t have her procedure for at least a year. Already, she had waited more than a decade for a diagnosis and three years to see a surgical specialist.

“It felt like I was a burden to my family,” said Kestin. For her, endometriosis led to crippling pain at least three weeks out of every month, putting her in a “very dark” mental space.

“I was in my 20s but it felt like I was 60.”

In Toronto, a new four-hospital collaboration is working on a solution to one of the province’s most stubborn wait-lists: a partnership to pool resources, take advantage of unused operating room space and maximize the number of patients getting surgery.