O.T. Another death at Ottawa Hospital Complications from WLS

OMG SERIOUSLY GOING TO FLIP OUT HERE!!!!!

I am a proud staff of The Ottawa Hospital and a proud patient of The Ottawa Hospital!!!!

Any of you that are talking SH*T about Dr Mamazza and Dr Yelle are just blowing smoke out your A$$ES!!!!! Those two men are incredibly skilled surgeons that have devoted their lives to helping people. They have been in and out of more OR's than you have taken craps in your lifetime!!
Do you people really think that The Ottawa Hospital or OHIP would allow just anyone to just start up a WLS center???? Seriously????

Girls.... DON'T KNOCK SURGEONS YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THOSE MEN DESERVE RESPECT FOR WHAT THEY ARE DOING NOT SLANDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Hear hear!!!!

Flip the out all you want, people are allowed to ask questions. 

It's not the asking questions that bothers me, it's people disrespecting very qualified surgeons that I have a problem with.

Those two men are incredibly skilled surgeons that have devoted their lives to helping people. They have been in and out of more OR's than you have taken craps in your lifetime!!

Okie dokie - they may be incredibly skilled surgeons that have been in and out of more OR's than I have taken ****s in my lifetime, but...............................
weight-loss surgery is the sugery we are discussing - not the other surgeries Dr. Yelle has done.  He has not performed rny surgery  for YEARS - so the experience he has performing other surgeries has zippity doodah to do with his expertise and experience in WEIGHT-LOSS SURGERY - period!

Thus, 3 deaths out of a little over 100 surgeries.  Now those stats scare the **** out of me....just sayin'

Why do we even care at this point?  Let em all go through Ottawa, not my problem anymore.  Obviously we do this because we care.  I'm not going to promote getting OOC back because what the Hell do we get out of it?  Not my problem if takes three times as long for people to be seen for a consult.  Not my problem if people die while waiting.  Just not my problem -period.  Let em all wait for *****akes.  I got my surgery and that's all that matters.  Done caring about any of these people.

Now going for a walk with my new "shape ups".

Well Said Kelly.

It's like beating your head against a wall, a very hard wall.

Catnip

While I can understand your need to defend these surgeons, and I don't doubt their intentions are good and noble, you have to admit that the stats are a bit frightening.
The blame, I think is obvious, is with our health care system as a whole, not individual doctors. The reality is that our hospitals are constantly working beyond capacity and surgeries being cancelled is the norm, as are long waiting lists, reguardless of the surgery. How then, can we expect our surgeons to become expert in their field? When, quite simply, they are not given the resources or OR time to do so.  OHIP had the right idea, sending people to specialists in the states, who were experts in the field and have dedicated resources to master their crafts. I, myself was fortunate enough to get it done by a talented U.S sugeon and am relieved I did.  Until We can offer the same expertise here, why are we trying. The surgery there cost $19,000, and I have all the follow up support I need, are we really going to honestly say it's less expensive here? And one has to wait much longer.  I think the support clinic, nutrition and counselling and follow ups, are a great idea, just not the surgeries themselves.  We should instead focus on having the surgeons here use the operating space (what little they give to RNY's anyways) for suregries that we have experts able to perform. The idea of having people get open RNY's, when there's no real reason for it, as it almost never happens with the American surgeons, is apalling. I feel those seeking this life saving surgery deserve the same timely, expert surgery that those of us have already had it, no less.
My two cents.
Karen

I spoke with Dr. Yelle regarding his stats.  He's done 75 open RNY's and 50 LAP RNY's as of March 9th 2010.  He's had 1 death and I believe he said 8 complications,   He did say that all of the patients with leaks had medical conditions which cause slow / poor healing.  The others were the 1 lady that was in the hospital for 41 days and strictures.  As for the 1 death, I right out asked him if he thought that he was at fault for the lady who passed away in December, if it could have been something he'd done and his answer was "it would be difficult to say for sure what the exact cause of the problem was, that it was a combination of things."  Of course he couldn't go into exact details but he did say she had been discharged from the hospital and was re-admitted with a leak.  He also said that she did have comorbidities, what or how many he didn't say.  I said that I had heard that she had passed away from a heart attack during a third surgery and he nodded and said that heart attacks are one of the biggest concerns with any surgery major or not, and there is no way they know who is at risk.  I told him I had heard that this lady had gone for a CAT Scan and was told to gulp the liquid and that's what caused the leak.  He told me that that was untrue and again said that she had be discharged from the hospital and readmitted.  I asked him if he does a leak test and he said he does 2 after he's completed the surgery before closure and that they do 1 more the following day.  From what I understand leaks can happen even after this point if there is a problem with the staple line(??).  Some one else may be able to give more info on this.
There has never been any definite information on the second person.  I have heard that it  was a SMO person who came into the hospital with a burst stomach and it was an emergency surgery to try to save their life and unfortunately it was to late.  I don't know if the patient had had WSL at another location or not but I do know they were not a patient at the Ottawa weight loss clinic, nor had WLS in Ottawa.  But this is all just hearsay as Dr. Yelle did not mention this at all and I did not ask.
Dr. Yelle is an excellent general surgeon who has been doing surgery for years and is very skilled.  He's saved many, many peoples lives who have shown up at the ER with life threatening problems.  I have every faith in his surgical abilities.  It's not like Ottawa's WL surgery Dr.'s are brand new out of school.  Our Dr.'s and surgeons here in Canada are just as good and capable as any other surgeons in the world. 
Dr. Yelle is the Trama Director at the civic hospital and specializes in trama, critical care and laparoscopic surgery.  If you showed up there needing surgery you'd be grateful to have him do it.  I know I would.

Just a note on older bypass patients.
My mom was 69 when she had hers back in Sept 09.  She has not felt this good in years, has not needed any insulin since her surgery, has cut back on many other life sustaining medicines...

This was OOC, but approved and paid for by OHIP.  Why could they approve and pay for something OOC but set such tight boundaries on age here within Ontario?  Seems weird. I know it is true, but it still seems weird.

I am sorry for the loss of a fellow brother or sister on our journey who was just reaching for a taste of freedom and granted the whole darn buffet of freedom too soon.