'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Roy Dahl’s bags are packed at the door as he waits for a call that would save his life -- the news that after years of dialysis treatment, he will finally be receiving a kidney transplant.
Dahl is in end-stage kidney failure, and has been on a waiting list for transplant for seven years.
“It’ll save my life,” he told CTV News. “It will be like winning the lottery.”
But, like many people in Canada, Dahl is dealing with the added agony of a potential delay as the fifth wave of COVID-19 floods hospitals.
“I just got a call last week from the transplant co-ordinator saying: ‘You’re number one on the list, and you will get a kidney soon, but we just have to make accommodations for COVID-19 cases,’” Dahl said.
So close, yet so far away. Across the country, provinces have cancelled or delayed thousands of surgeries since the pandemic began.
“We only have capacity in the system for immediately life-threatening things,” Dr. Katharine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association, told CTV News.
There are no real short-term solutions to address the backlog.
“Things that are urgent, including kidney transplants, other organ transplants, some cancer surgeries are being delayed, and the impact on Canadians is huge,” Smart said.
The impact on Dahl is that he must go for dialysis three times a week for four-and-a-half hours each time.
The 61-year-old grandfather is Ojibway, and according to the Kidney Foundation of Canada, Indigenous people are more than three times more likely to have kidney failure than non-Indigenous people.
Complicating things is that those undergoing dialysis for kidney failure are at a higher risk than many groups when it comes to COVID-19.
One study from 2020 found that dialysis patients who contracted COVID-19 had a 20 to 30 per cent mortality rate.
If dialysis patients are receiving their dialysis treatment in a hospital or a dedicated centre outside of their home, they also risk exposure to the virus, due to the travel needed for multiple life-sustaining dialysis treatments per week.
For those with end-stage kidney failure, there is no cure. Those suffering from it have to go on dialysis either for the rest of their life, or until they can secure a kidney transplant.
When the time comes for Dahl to receive his new kidney, he will have to travel from Yellowknife to Edmonton for the procedure.
For now, all he can do is wait.
“I jump every time that phone rings,” Dahl said. “I keep hoping that it’s that call from the renal unit in Edmonton.”
Alberta Health Services said transplant services have continued during the pandemic, but added that some surgeries have been delayed by factors including whether critical care beds are available.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.