Wait times for surgery in Canada have increased: 'Serious consequences'

Wait times for Canadians to get surgery and other therapeutic treatments increased in 2022, jumping from 25.6 weeks to 27.4 weeks compared to the previous year, according to new research from the Fraser Institute.

The Fraser Institute found Ontario had the shortest total wait in 2022, at 20.3 weeks, followed by British Columbia, at 25.8 weeks, and Quebec, at 29.4 weeks. The longest waits? Prince Edward Islanders had to wait 64.7 weeks and Nova Scotians 58.2 weeks, more than a year.

The calculations included the time it took for patients to wait from their GP's referral to see a specialist, and then added on how long it took to be treated by the specialist.

Wait times in 2022 were 195 per cent longer than in 1993 when it was just 9.3 weeks.

According to the recently published Ontario Council of Hospital Unions research, 11,000 Ontarians died while waiting for procedures including surgery, CT scans, and MRIs in 2022.

Patient: ‘I waited eight months to see my doctor again after my surgery ... That was his choice, not mine’

Glenn Jones, a 70-year-old resident in B.C., has been fighting the surgical wait times for over 26 months to regain full function of his legs.

“In 2021, I developed a stenosis in my back, which is a narrowing of the spinal channel. In a short period of time I lost feeling in my legs and the ability to walk," he told Yahoo Canada in an interview. 

Jones says he immediately went to the Victoria General Hospital’s emergency room and was in the hospital for two weeks where he had an emergency surgery.

“After that, my neurosurgeon said that I needed at least one more surgery, maybe more. I waited eight months to see my doctor again after my surgery. I didn't see my neurosurgeon for another eight months. That was his choice, not mine.”

After his operation, Jones regained some use of his legs, enough to do chores around the house, but he still couldn’t get around freely without his electric wheelchair.

He has been on the surgical waitlist since April 2022. Currently, there are 1,529 patients waiting for spinal surgery in B.C.

“I saw my doctor and he said I'd have an operation in the Fall of 2022…and the operation never happened,” he says. “They sent me a letter saying I'm on the waitlist and not to call anybody because they'll call you when your turn is up. So there's nothing there and the doctor will not give me any timeline now.”

While Jones saw his surgeon again as well for his yearly check-up, their conversation did not spark any hope for him.

“He said I still need some more surgery, but I might as well forget about any surgery. He said - I'm doing two surgeries a week, two elective surgeries a week. He said - at this rate, there's no way I can say whenever you're going to get an operation.”

Right now, Jones believes he’s in a waiting game with the healthcare system.

“For those of us that have a problem that requires some sort of an elective surgery, - it's not like we're imminently dying or we're imminently going to get a whole lot worse - those kinds of situations seem to be overlooked,” Jones says. “It is important to people for their quality of life, even if they're not walking for a year because they're waiting, it's still putting people through a lot of pain and disruption.”

More than 1 million Canadians affected

The Fraser Institute estimates that across the ten provinces, the total number of procedures for which people were waiting in 2022 is over 1.2 million.

While not all surgeries are life or death or need immediate attention, a lot of Canadians are being forced to adjust their daily lives around surgical wait times, with no clear answer in sight.

"Research has repeatedly indicated that wait times for medically necessary treatment are not benign inconveniences. Wait times can, and do, have serious consequences such as increased pain, suffering, and mental anguish," the Fraser Institute report states.