Wait Times for Specialists, Surgery in Canada Highest in Nearly 30 Years: Survey

The Valley Regional Hospital in Kentville, N.S., on April 30, 2019. (The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan)

Canadians are now waiting longer than ever before if they need to see a specialist, obtain diagnostic procedures, or undergo surgery, according to a new survey.

This year, an estimated 1,228,047 Canadians are waiting for procedures in 10 provinces. This is roughly 3.2 percent of the country’s population, assuming each person is only waiting for one medical treatment.

The Fraser Institute says that in the nearly 30 years it has been documenting how long it takes for patients to receive necessary medical treatment by a specialist after being referred by a general practitioner (GP), this year’s median wait time of 27.4 weeks is the longest.

‘Serious Consequences’

The think tank’s 2022 report found that the median wait time this year is 195 percent longer than that of 9.3 weeks in 1993, longer than the wait of 25.6 weeks in 2021, and longer than the wait of 20.9 weeks in 2019, the year before COVID.

“Waiting for treatment has become a defining characteristic of Canadian health care,” said the report, “Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2022.”

“Wait times can, and do, have serious consequences such as increased pain, suffering, and mental anguish. In certain instances, they can also result in poorer medical outcomes—transforming potentially reversible illnesses or injuries into chronic, irreversible conditions, or even permanent disabilities,” write authors Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua.

“In many instances, patients may also have to forgo their wages while they wait for treatment, resulting in an economic cost to the individuals themselves and the economy in general.”

Fraser Institute's "Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2022" report. (Fraser Institute Handout)

Those who need a computed tomography (CT) scan can expect to wait 5.4 weeks this year. The wait for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan is almost double that, at 10.6 weeks, while the wait for an ultrasound is 4.9 weeks.

The report collected data from Jan. 10 to Sept. 15—a longer period than those in pre-COVID years—and surveyed specialist physicians across 10 provinces and 12 specialties. Its aim was to determine the median wait time between a GP referral and an appointment with a specialist, and the median wait time between that appointment and actual diagnostic/surgical treatment.

The researchers received just a 7.1 percent response rate, lower than in previous years, and said their findings need to be interpreted with caution.

According to the report, wait times vary substantially by province. At 20.3 weeks, Ontario has the shortest wait from GP referral to specialist treatment, while Prince Edward Island has the longest, at 64.7 weeks.

The wait time to see a specialist increased in seven provinces since 2021 but decreased in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec.

Wait times also vary based on the type of care needed. Patients requiring radiation treatments wait 3.9 weeks, while those who need a neurosurgical procedure wait the longest, more than a year, at 58.9 weeks.

For those who need elective cardiovascular surgery, the wait is 16.4 weeks, while plastic surgery patients wait 58.1 weeks, and orthopedic surgery patients wait 48.4 weeks.

As for the length of time it took to see a specialist after receiving a referral from a GP, the wait this year was 12.6 weeks, 242 percent longer than in 1993, when it was just 3.7 weeks. The shortest wait to see a specialist was in Ontario at 10.1 weeks, while the longest was in Prince Edward Island at 41.7 weeks.

Longer Than Clinically ‘Reasonable’

The wait isn’t over, though. The waiting time between seeing a specialist and receiving treatment was 14.8 weeks this year, 164 percent longer than in 1993 when it was 5.6 weeks.

This wait time is also longer than the 8.1 weeks that physicians consider clinically “reasonable.”

Specialists were surveyed as to what they regard to be clinically “reasonable” wait times from consultation with the specialist to actual treatment. Of the 109 categories considered, the actual waiting time exceeds the “reasonable” wait time 83 percent of the time.

For plastic surgery patients, the actual wait time is 20.7 weeks longer than what specialists considered “reasonable.”

The shortest median wait time between specialist appointment and treatment was in Ontario, at 10.2 weeks, while the longest was in Manitoba, at 25.4 weeks.

Physicians reported that only about 11 percent of their patients are on a waiting list because they themselves requested a delay or postponement of treatment