Canada prides itself on its universal health care system, but a new study shows that for health issues requiring a specialist and treatment, it means waiting, weeks, or more likely, months.
The Fraser Institute, a non-partisan public policy think tank, recently produced a study on wait times for health care in Canada. It’s called, Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada 2020
The study examined 12 medical specialties and the time it takes from the time a patient is referred by GP (general practitioner-i.e., family doctor) to see a specialist, to when the person receives treatment.
The annual survey noted that in 2020 the average wait time is now 22.6 weeks. The longest ever since 1993 when the national survey for medically necessary elective treatments began.
That first year, average wait time was 9.3 weeks.
Fraser Inst. Health care wait times survey 2020
Breaking it down, the time between GP referral to seeing a specialist was just over10 weeks, and then from the specialist to treatment was also just over 10 weeks.
The survey showed that wait times also varied significantly from province to province, with Ontario at just over 17 weeks, and Prince Edward Island at over 46 weeks.
It is estimated that there are over 1,224,000 Canadians waiting for treatment this year, a situation which is only being made more difficult as resources are drawn off to deal with COVID and large numbers of surgeries are postponed.
Due to COVID, there were fewer doctor responses to the survey this year, although there were still 1,200 responses from across the country.
Physicians say that after seeing the specialist, patients are waiting about four weeks longer for treatment than what they suggest is clinically reasonable.
Bacchus Barua is the associate director of the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies and co-author of the study. In a press release he said, “Long wait times aren’t simply minor inconveniences, they can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, a decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death”.
The report itself notes, “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. 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”.
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