latest data <\/a>available in Quebec shows as of Aug. 23, more than 1,300 patients were waiting for cardiac surgery. Nearly 65 per cent had been waiting longer than what is medically acceptable according to the province’s timelines.\u00a0<\/p>\nQuebec\u2019s Health Ministry said in a statement to CBC News that the number of deaths noted by the cardiologists and surgeons should be \u201cinterpreted with caution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPatients awaiting cardiac surgery often have multiple co-morbidities. The cause of death may therefore be related to a condition other than cardiac disease.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry said the shortage of perfusionists specifically is responsible for just one per cent of cancelled surgeries in the province.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staffing issues across Canada<\/p>\n
Other provinces are dealing with staffing challenges, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re a very under-the-radar profession,\u201d said Naresh Tinani, a senior cardiovascular perfusionist in Regina and acting president of the Canadian Society of Clinical Perfusion. He said that\u2019s partly what makes attracting new people to the job difficult, along with on-call schedules and overtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re essentially working on a cardiac surgeon\u2019s schedule,\u201d he said. \u201cIt becomes a challenging position to maintain over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tinani said the staffing crunch is also linked to wages \u2014 with higher salaries and other incentives in the U.S. drawing perfusionists away \u2014 an aging workforce, and the intense demands of the job.<\/p>\n
Quebec faces the most strain, said Tinani. \u201cThey do lose perfusionists to other provinces and to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yannick Pinard, a perfusionist in Quebec City and president of the Quebec Perfusionists Association, said it’s getting harder to recruit and retain people for the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see more and more people leaving the province of Quebec for better work conditions outside of the province,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sant\u00e9 Quebec, the government corporation in charge of health services, said it is aware of the recruitment and retention challenges. <\/p>\n
“Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec remains committed to attracting, training, and retaining new graduates to ensure continuity of services,” it said in a statement. <\/p>\n
Some provinces are trying to boost the number of people training for the position, which is offered at three sites in Canada \u2014 the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al, the British Columbia Institute of Technology and the Michener Institute in Toronto.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michener principal Dr. Michael O’Leary said the school is working with Ontario’s Health Ministry to increase the number of students it trains each year \u2014 from 16 last year to 38 by the fall of 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have a concern around the recruitment of individuals into the profession,\u201d O\u2019Leary said. \u201cThe importance of this role within the operating room is significant and we believe that there’s an opportunity here to meet that demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Died on the waiting list\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Quebec, the cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons said they\u2019re worried about keeping people on waitlists \u2014 and losing patients as they wait for surgery. The associations track the number of deaths on waitlists for each cardiovascular surgical centre in Quebec and found nearly 80 died while waiting for surgery last year. The associations say that is in part due to staffing shortages which prevent surgeries from being scheduled, and leads to some being cancelled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Manitoba, Debbie Fewster was added to that province\u2019s wait list for cardiac surgery in August of last year. She was 69, and needed a triple-bypass surgery, but her son Daniel Fewster said it was never scheduled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She died of a heart attack a year ago, after Thanksgiving dinner. She had been on the list for two-and-half months.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760004068_162_default.jpg\")
Daniel Fewster holds a photograph of his mother Debbie, who died of a heart attack in 2024, while waiting for heart surgery in Manitoba. (Jaison Empson\/CBC)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the ambulance showed up they did their best to revive her. They threw everything they had at her, but she was gone,\u201d said her son in an interview from his home in Niverville, Man.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fewster says he doesn\u2019t know why his mother\u2019s surgery was not scheduled, or if the delay was linked to a shortage of perfusionists or other staff. Still, he has been calling for more transparency around wait times \u2014 regardless of the reasons behind them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He and his family want the Manitoba government to pass “Debbie\u2019s law” \u2014 which would ensure patients are informed about expected wait times for their surgery, and what their other options are if the wait time is longer than what is medically recommended.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019d have known that my mom was going to be on a list for two-and-a-half months and she needed surgery in three weeks, we’d have done something about it,\u201d said Fewster.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the Manitoba government said in a statement, \u201cthe Minister of Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care directed cardiac services to provide all patients with a letter giving them an expected timeline for their surgery (based on their acuity).\u201d<\/p>\n
Pinard, the perfusionist in Quebec City, wants Quebec to improve salaries and working conditions. He remains committed to the job, and hopes things will improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in it. I think it’s just a matter of time,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardiologists and heart surgeons in Quebec are warning about a shortage of staff, particularly perfusionists, saying the lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-199847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760004067_787_default.jpg\")
Perfusionists operate what’s known as a heart-lung machine, which helps keep patients alive during heart surgery. (Yannick Pinard)<\/p>\n