Elective procedures — along with organ transplants and cancer treatments — are now on hold in Saskatchewan due to COVID-19, and those in limbo are suffering because of the delays.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority announced earlier this month it was slowing down the aforementioned services to focus its efforts on combating COVID-19.
“For at least three to five years, I’ve had some amount of hip pain. But you just, you take a little bit of Tylenol occasionally when it’s starting,” Steve Turnquist from Stony Beach, about 38 kilometres west of Regina, said.
“Beyond that, over the years, you get to taking as much Tylenol as you can every day and as much naproxen as available for the body to take.”
Now he deals with that pain on a daily basis. Sometimes he said he feels a stabbing pain in his hip, while other times it’s an agonizing pain that limits his ability to walk or even stand and feels like it won’t leave him.