'It's depressing': Toronto woman's life-changing surgery cancelled right before operation

Woman's critical surgery cancelled at last minute A GTA woman waited two years to have a life-changing back surgery, only for it to be cancelled an hour before it was supposed to begin.

Sitting at home, with hospital bracelets still on her wrist, Jessica Beck was supposed to have life-changing surgery on Wednesday. Surgery that was cancelled right before she went into the operating room.

"I was just shocked," she told CTV News Toronto. “It's really unbelievable in our country that surgeries are being cancelled on the day of, it's, it's not right.”

Beck is one of a few patients whose surgery was cancelled at Toronto Western Hospital that day.

She had been waiting over two years to have a spinal fusion to correct chronic pain brought on by a combination of scoliosis and spondylolisthesis.

The 37-year-old mother of three was still in her hospital gown when she was told about the cancellation.

"It's not even cancelling the day before, it's cancelling the day of. I just think that it's inhumane," she said.

As for why the procedure was cancelled? Beck said she was told, “there's just not enough nurses on the floor to help you in recovery because you need to stay overnight, and we're very sorry."

Due to her conditions, Beck said she has to perform most tasks sitting down. Her family had made plans to help with the three to sixth month recovery time and she expected to be healthy by summer.

"It's depressing," she said. "I need this surgery to be able to return to normal things that I do in my life, to take care of my family."

Dr. Fayez Quereshy, a clinical VP at the University Health Network (of which Toronto Western is a part of), said, "All of our empathy and compassion sits with this patient and their family.”

Qureshy said that the network has seen an influx of patients coming to the ER in the back half of October and that they are still experiencing a staffing shortage.

"Right now, we are experiencing a significant kind of strain on the health system," he said. "Health human resource is certainly one of them, but also physical bed capacity by a rising number of patients that have come into the emergency department."

While Quereshy said that same day cancellations are rare, Beck believes there is evidence her experience is far from isolated and that the woman next to her in the pre-operating room was having her surgery cancelled for a second time.

"I heard the nurse tell the lady next to me that this was the third day in a row that surgeries of this kind had to be cancelled," she said.

Beck’s surgery may be rescheduled to December, but she said she was also told by the hospital that they can't start to rebook until capacity issues are resolved.

She said the staff at Toronto Western were very apologetic, "and they're just doing their best, and it's just a broken system. I don't know how to say that. Something needs to be done, right away."