Canada PoliticsHospital wait times may have cost 44,273 women their lives over 16-year period: Fraser Institute
It's no secret that the Fraser Institute would like more private options within our public healthcare system.
Over the years, pro-free market think-tank has published a flurry of reports suggesting that the way we deliver health services in this country is costly and inefficient.
Putting aside that slant for the time being, their latest report — analyzing the link between mortality rates and wait times — is rather startling.
[ Related: Fraser Institute report suggests hospital wait times cost Canadians over $1 billion ]
Using numerous variables — including causes of mortality, lifestyle risk factors and total healthcare expenditures — the three learned authors of the report deduced that "there exists a positive relationship between delayed medical care and mortality at the aggregate level" especially when it comes to women.
"These results allow us to estimate the number of Canadian lives that may have been lost to increases in wait times between 1993 and 2009, a period during which wait times for medically necessary elective care lengthened considerably. We find that, over this 16-year period, increases in wait times for medically necessary elective treatment may be associated with 44,273 additional female deaths (with a 95% confidence interval from 25,456 to 63,090).This represents approximately 2.5% of total female deaths during the period or 1.2% of total mortality (male and female) during the period.
"This estimated increase in the Canadian mortality rate associated with waiting for medical treatment was likely unnecessary and is the result of a health-policy regime that imposes longer wait times on Canadians than are found in the universal-access healthcare systems of other developed nations."
Some will quibble with the source of the report while others might question the numbers.
Generally, however, the theory makes sense — longer wait times to see a specialist or to have surgery is invariably going to lead to deteriorating health and, in some situations, death.
"Deaths resulting from delayed medical care are unacceptable," Nadeem Esmail, one of the author's of the report, noted in a press release accompanying the report.
"Canadian taxpayers fund one of the developed world’s most expensive universal access health care systems, yet delays for emergency care, primary care, specialist consultation and elective surgery are among the longest in the world.
"While the reasons for the potential gender difference remain unclear, the solution to the problem is obvious. Lengthy wait times for medically necessary treatment, and the deaths associated with them, are Canada’s shame, but we can solve both problems through sensible policy reform."
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The Fraser Institute isn't the only group to have raised flags over increasing wait times in recent years.
A February 2013 bulletin by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, notes that despite their best efforts, provincial governments aren't having much luck tackling wait times.
And another more recent Commonwealth Fund study ranked Canada last among 11 OECD countries in terms of how quickly patients can get an appointment with their regular family doctor.
What seems to be indisputable is that wait times continue to be a challenge in Canada resulting unfortunate and sometimes dire consequences.
Whatever their motivations, at least the Fraser Institute is attempting to quantify the growing problem.
(Photo courtesy of Reuters)
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