Male RNY Surgery in MB

6 months ago I called Manitoba Health and they said there are no intentions to include men on the list for RNY surgery. I must travel to another province to get it done.

The surgery is paid for by MB, however, along the way you are partially reimbursed for travel and lodging expenses. Essentially, this becomes a 2+ year process just to get approval, an undertaking would also cost 10 times more in lost wages than if it were offered in Manitoba.

This is maddening. I would consider a law suit if I wasn't so angry about becoming so heavy.

Does anyone have any updated information, or know how I can push this through?

I would think that lobbying your MLA and the health minister and maybe the opposition might help for the future. I would also get on that out of province list as well- the time will pass no matter if you are on that list or not. I wish I had got my butt in gear a while ago.

I know it sucks but it is only a pilot project at this point  and hasn't been up and at it for very long.....  and the criteria is female only at this time. Along with age limits and weight limits so  the exclusion isn't only gender related.

Call the Bariatric Clinic in Winnipeg and ask them when the program will be openning up. (258-1384)

The plan was to keep the criteria tight for about 2 years because the surgeons were fresh out of their bariatric residency programs and needed to start with a group of low risk patients. (The procedure is more difficult to do on men because men tend to carry more weight around the middle.) The program is close to reaching the 2 year mark now. According to my surgeon, the province is going to support this program. So in time, they will have to open it up to men and women who didn't meet the original criteria, the question is "when".

I don't blame you at all for being frustrated. If there isn't a plan in place to open this up soon, then we should all lobby our MLA. It isn't ok for people to be excluded from the program unless their health is so poor that they wouldn't survive the surgery.

Tanya

 of course, once the criteria opens up it becomes a 4 to 5 year wait list for those at the bottom, which is what I was told recently when I asked about it. So if you have been recently added to the list, but there are others who didn't fit the original criteria ahead of you...well you get bumped right down.  Which would also mean your two year out of province wait would become 4-5 years, since you are a new applicant...Be careful what you ask for folks. 
I have empathy for those who don't fit the pilot criteria, I really do. But I am TERRIFIED at the thought of having to wait 5 years because I only got my referral in December of 2011.
Quite honestly, if people want to get after their MLAs, I think it makes a heck of a lot more sense to go after them about the lap-band procedure. I have yet to get a reasonable answer as to why that isn't covered and the fact that it might be a more viable option for folks if it were covered would lessen the wait list for the VSG or RNY. Pilot projects are established for a number of reasons and if this has been in place less than two years, I can see the province stalling on issues of efficacy. Lap band procedures have been done here in the province longer than that and they have a decent sized pool to draw conclusions from.
From what I've read the lap-band woukd be my first choice, but if not covered there is no way I can afford it. I believe there are a number of folks in my position. 

I completely agree with you Canadiancricket. They wont help fund viable lapbanding (no idea why) but they will pay for all health related issues one develops from being overweight. No doubt much more costly than the procedure itself. I too looked into the cost of lanpbanding and at 18,000, it is not even in my realm of possibilities. There are resources out there, paid for my our medical system, if you are addicted to drugs, alcohol, smoking or gambling..all choices one makes so why not help for weight loss? How do they differentiate why one is more acceptable?

 Yep, they'll pay to amputate my limbs should diabetes cause that. But not for the lapband.
I really don't think we should be pushing for the pilot project to expand its criteria, not without more doctors to do the surgery.
However, funding the lapband would make sense.
I honestly think that refusal to fund lapband surgery is a form of "fat discrimination" and I wonder of anyone has looked at filing a human rights complaint.