Ed Striebe, 59, was diagnosed with moderately aggressive prostate cancer in September. After talking with his surgeon, they decided Striebe’s treatment plan would start with surgery. The hospital would call Striebe to schedule the procedure.
Striebe waited. And waited some more. Then he called the hospital — which Striebe did not want to name — only to be told that because they were cutting back their number of scheduled surgeries, they could not give him a date yet. He called again last week and received a similar response: The hospital would get back to him soon.
Now, as the year draws to a close, Striebe is still waiting.
“When you have a doctor in front of you saying, ‘Yeah, you have cancer,’ the big C-word, whether it’s small, big or different, you get a little bit wigged out,” Striebe said. “Then you kind of just keep going along. But I just — I want it done.”
Striebe is just one of hundreds of Vermonters whose surgery has been delayed in recent weeks as hospitals struggle to manage high numbers of patients — both sick with Covid-19 and not. And while many patients do continue to receive prompt medical care, some of those kept waiting experience notable impacts in their day-to-day lives.
Last week, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which serves many Vermonters in the southern part of the state, posted on Facebook: “Due to the high number of COVID-19 patients in our hospital, we are experiencing a shortage in the staffing and beds needed to provide you with the most appropriate care. For these reasons, your surgery or procedure may be delayed. Thank you for your patience during these challenging times.”
Dartmouth-Hitchcock did not respond to emails with questions about delayed surgeries.
On Nov. 30, the University of Vermont Medical Center announced it was postponing elective procedures through the end of the year to preserve the capacity amid surging Covid-19 cases. That decision delayed care for an estimated 200 to 250 patients, said hospital spokesperson Annie Mackin.
Hospital leaders decided this week to reopen a few more operating rooms in January, Mackin said, though they will still operate below normal surgical capacity.
“That means some patients may still unfortunately see their surgery postponed in January on a case by case basis, depending on capacity on certain days and what we need to do to meet the most urgent patient needs,” she wrote in an email to VTDigger.
This is not just a Vermont problem. Many other hospitals in New England and across the country have canceled elective surgeries to preserve staff and bed capacity.
This week, the Massachusetts Department of Health ordered all hospitals in the commonwealth to cancel or postpone all “non-essential, non-urgent” procedures by Monday, MassLive reported. An executive order from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul prompted more than 30 New York hospitals to cancel all elective procedures earlier this month.
Striebe said he understands the pressures hospitals are facing, since he works in one. He’s the director of dietary and environmental services at Copley Hospital in Morrisville, which is not where he sought cancer treatment.
“I see both sides of the coin,” he said. But he’s still anxious that his cancer will spread while he waits.
Striebe had a friend who had cancer, who thought she was OK and then died of the disease just a few months later.
“So there’s still that little monkey on your back going, ‘Is this going to spread? Is this going to do that?’ ” he said.
Kerrin McCadden, a poet and high school English teacher from South Burlington, also said she feels anxious after her surgery was put in limbo. She’s worried about her students, too. McCadden was scheduled to have a hysterectomy at UVM Medical Center on Jan. 5. She expected the procedure would take her out of the classroom for four weeks while she recovered.
Her school found a qualified substitute, and without sharing details, she had prepared her students that she would be away for a few weeks, but she would be OK.
But then, on Dec. 20, she got a call that her surgery was canceled. She does not know when it will be back on the calendar.
“It’s a major surgery, so it’s the emotions of preparing for something major that you also are not preparing for at the same time,” she said. “Like is it happening or is it not?”
The uncertainty of it all was an added stressor in an already rough school year, she said.
It’s difficult for the hospital to answer why a particular patient was rescheduled without getting really detailed, said Mackin, the UVM Medical Center spokesperson. It sometimes happens in normal, non-pandemic times, depending on an individual doctor’s schedule. Now, it’s also possible that patients originally scheduled for December surgeries may bump a January patient out of the schedule if that case is more urgent.
“(W)e also know that even if your procedure is considered ‘elective,’ it can have an impact on your quality of life while you wait,” Stephen Leffler, president and chief operating officer of UVM Medical Center, said in a November press release that announced they would cancel surgeries. “I apologize to any patients who may be inconvenienced or even angered by our need to limit surgical procedures in the coming weeks, but we are doing this to save lives.”
For Pete Engle, the wait to fix a herniated disc in his spine has left him unable to work or walk more than short distances, he said.
In October, after paddling on the Green River Reservoir in Hyde Park, he picked up his kayak at the end of the day and blew out a disc.
By that night, he was in “screaming, puddle-of-jello-on-the-floor” pain, he said.
After visits to the Copley Hospital emergency room, his primary care physician’s office and physical therapy, he finally scheduled an MRI for Dec. 3. He was not able to schedule an appointment to discuss the results until Dec. 20.
While he waited, he sent his MRI results to a friend in New Jersey, who is a spine surgeon.
“He looked at it, and called me, and he said, ‘Yeah, we call this an oh shit MRI,’ ” Engle said. “Meaning, ‘Oh shit. We have to get this guy into surgery right now.’ ”
When Engle tried to schedule with specialists at UVM and Dartmouth, he was told he would have to wait, he said.
“It’s like if something’s not bleeding or falling off, nobody wants to talk to you,” he said.
While waiting to get the disc repaired, Engle has experienced intense pain. He struggles with day-to-day activities such as grocery shopping because he cannot carry much more than a half-gallon of milk, he said, which means his wife has to take on more responsibilities around their home.
“I’m almost completely disabled right now,” he said. “And I have to wait till the end of February, at the earliest, to even start talking to a doctor that might be able to fix this, at least within the Vermont health care system.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized how Kerrin McCadden prepared for surgical recovery.