PRHC Marks First Anniversary of Nerve Catheter Procedure For Knee Surgeries

The Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) has celebrated the first anniversary of introducing an advanced nerve catheter procedure for patients undergoing knee surgery, announced on Thursday.

Earlier this year, PRHC expanded its team of orthopedic surgeons to eight specialists. File Photo.

According to the PRHC, since June of last year, 220 patients have benefitted from the nerve catheter procedure, which involves having a tiny, flexible tube placed under the skin by an anesthesiologist to provide continuous, targeted numbing of the area following their knee surgery.

Benefits of the nerve catheter include:

• Shorter hospital stays – many procedures can now be done on an outpatient basis rather than requiring overnight hospital stays

• Faster and more comfortable recovery

• Avoidance of opioid usage and related complications

• Reduced wait times for knee surgeries – the current wait time for knee surgery at PRHC is now one to two months.

“The nerve catheter allows patients to recover in the comfort of their own home and provides better pain control after the operation, because the nerve block lasts several days,” says Dr. Carla Henderson, PRHC Anesthesiologist. “Orthopedic surgeons can now offer same-day surgeries with these catheters, which means that we can do more operations and have shorter wait times for patients.”

“I have been telling everybody that if you have this operation, get this catheter,” said Elwyn, PRHC knee replacement patient. “I was expecting pain, I was expecting some sort of symptom from drugs that you take for pain, and because of the catheter, I had none of that.”

PRHC is currently the only hospital between Kingston and Durham that provides this service to patients.

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