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Worsening condition

Let’s talk health care and specifically the wait times it tales to get a joint replacement such as a hip or knee. According to the Alberta Health Annual Report 2016-2017, 6,003 hips have been done and 6,690 knees.

Let’s talk health care and specifically the wait times it tales to get a joint replacement such as a hip or knee.

According to the Alberta Health Annual Report 2016-2017, 6,003 hips have been done and 6,690 knees. Of these totals, 327 hips and 547 knees have been done in the AHS Northern Zone, which is where we are. Comparing the per-cent-to-population of knee and hip replacements between the Northern Zone and Edmonton Zone, 0.32 per cent of the population received replacements in the Edmonton Zone, and only 0.18 per cent did in the Northern Zone.

The reason for this difference is that to my knowledge there is only three places in the North Zone that do hips and knees – Grande Prairie, Westlock and Bonnyville. We have 106 hospitals in Alberta. But in my opinion they are triage centres and palliative care.

These hospitals are all staffed and maintained and came about when Alberta was riding high.

The doctors would do more hips and knees but there is not enough money to keep our operating rooms open longer.

Yes, we need facilities for other avenues of heath care. Our population is getting older and joint replacement is more common. The wait times are getting to be over a year. This means that people are in worse condition from diagnosis until getting fixed; recovery is longer and productivity is reduced. The cost of pain control is high. Such as cortisone etc.

I would suggest our politicians take a close look at this situation.

Bob Lindsay

Sunset Beach, AB

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