Marla Marshall has been waiting for her second liver transplant since February of this year, and now she worries that time is running out.
The Calgary mother, a mother of three, was born with a form of neonatal hepatitis and had her first transplant in 1998. That liver is now failing, too.
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With COVID-19 cases on the rise in Alberta, hospital ICUs are overwhelmed, causing life-saving organ transplants to be delayed for many, like Marshall.
“My symptoms get worse, my eyes get yellower, my bruises get worse and the wait gets longer,” said Marshall, who is 40 years old.
Right now, urgent cases involving deceased donor transplants are being prioritized, but all living donor surgeries have been postponed, an Alberta Health Services spokesperson told Global News in an emailed statement.
As of Tuesday, there were 1,100 Albertans in the hospital with COVID-19, 263 of whom were being treated in the ICU.
The situation is also worrying in Saskatchewan, which last week halted its organ donation program due to a lack of staff and intensive care beds caused by the fourth wave of COVID-19 in the province.
Saskatoon resident Jessica Bailey, who has been on kidney dialysis for the past two years, finally received the green light from her doctor on Sept. 15 for a transplant.
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However, before a date could be set for her procedure, the province suspended all organ transplants. She was devastated.
“It’s a bit disheartening to go from thinking that you’re going to get your life back now, I don’t know what’s going to happen or how long we’ll have to wait,” said the 35-year-old kidney. said the patient.
“The longer I go without a transplant, the greater the risk that I will die,” he added.
Jessica Bailey is currently on dialysis treatment. He was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in June 2018.
Photo courtesy: Melanie Bailey
Experts fear that the delay in life-saving procedures could result in more deaths this year.
“This is a time of extreme concern for all those who are waiting for a transplant,” said Nem Maksimovic, manager of national health promotion and education for the Canadian Liver Foundation.
“This very well may result in more patients dying while waiting on the transplant list.”
What’s happening in Alberta and Saskatchewan also affects Canadians across the country, Maksimovic said, due to the uncertainty of what might happen at other transplant centers across the country in the future.
Cancellations not only increase stress for patients and families waiting for a new organ, but they also run the risk of worsening their quality of life, he warned.
The pandemic has already taken a significant toll on transplant patients in different provinces, as healthcare personnel and other resources have been diverted to deal with COVID-19.
According to the most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, nationwide there were 4,129 patients awaiting a single transplant and 118 combined transplants, as of December 31, 2020.
A total of 805 were removed from the waiting list or died while waiting for a transplant, the data showed.
As the pandemic drags into its 20th month, many are beginning to lose hope about when their turn might come.
Dave Mathers of Calgary was awaiting his kidney transplant at Foothill Medical Hospital after being on the waiting list for three years.
The day before the surgery, scheduled for September 8, Mathers was told the procedure was canceled because there was no space in the ICU. The 61-year-old couldn’t believe his luck.
“At that moment … you feel like you’re going to go blank. You think this can’t be real, ”he told Global News.
Before a procedure, both recipients and donors undergo months of rigorous testing, as they need to be as healthy as possible.
“If a surgery is really postponed, there is always the possibility that someone will not be healthy enough to receive a transplant when it is available,” said Flavia Robles de la Fuente, executive director of Northern Alberta & The Territories Branch at Kidney Foundation.
Mathers is concerned about the stress of his wife and daughter and also about the health of his donor.
“Something could happen to my donor and it cannot continue and I will never get another anonymous donor.
“This is a one in a million chance.”
– with files from Heather Yourex-West, Su-Ling Goh and Nathaniel Dove of Global News
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