FRASER INSTITUTE: Medical wait times cost BC patients $2,455 in lost wages in 2018 ... more than $2 billion in lost wages for combined Canadian patients
VANCOUVER — Long waits
for surgery and medical treatment cost Canadians $2.1 billion in lost wages last year, finds a new study
released today by the Fraser Institute, an
independent, non-partisan
Canadian public policy think-tank.
It’s
estimated more than one million Canadians waited for medically necessary treatment in 2018.
“Waiting
for medically necessary treatment remains a hallmark of the Canadian health-care
system, and in addition to increased pain and suffering—and potentially worse medical outcomes—these long
waits also cost Canadians time at work and with family and friends,” said Bacchus Barua, associate director of
health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of The
Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary
Care, 2019.
The
study finds that the estimated
1,082,541 patients who waited for medically necessary treatment
last year each lost $1,924 (on
average) due to lost wages and reduced
productivity during working
hours, or $2.1 billion
combined.
When including the value of time outside the traditional work week—evenings and weekends (excluding
eight hours of sleep per night)—the
estimated cost of waiting jumps
from $2.1 billion to $6.3 billion, or $5,860
per patient.
The
study draws upon data from the Fraser
Institute’s Waiting
Your Turn study, an annual
survey of Canadian physicians
who, in 2018, reported a median
wait time from specialist appointment to treatment of 11 weeks—three
weeks longer than what physicians
consider clinically reasonable.
Crucially,
the $2.1 billion in lost
wages is likely a conservative estimate because it doesn’t account for the additional 8.7- week
wait to see a specialist after
receiving a referral from a general practitioner. Taken together (11 weeks and 8.7 weeks), the median
wait time in Canada for medical treatment was 19.8 weeks in 2018.“
As long
as lengthy wait times define Canada’s health-care system,
patients will
continue to pay
a price in lost wages and reduced quality
of life,” Barua said.
Because
wait times and incomes vary by
province, so does the cost of waiting for health care.
Residents of Manitoba in 2018
faced the highest per-patient cost of waiting ($2,852), followed by P.E.I.
($2,594) and Alberta ($2,538).
Average value of time lost during the work week in 2018
for patients waiting for medically necessary treatment (by
province):
- British Columbia ... $2,455
- Alberta ... $2,538
- Saskatchewan ... $1,639
- Manitoba ... $2,852
- Ontario ... $1,368
- Quebec ... $1,209
- New Brunswick ... $2,391
- Nova Scotia ... $2,487
- Prince Edward Island ... $2,594
- Newfoundland and Labrador ... $1,559
The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian
public policy research and educational organization
with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal and ties to a global network of think-tanks in 87 countries.
Its mission is to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families and future generations by
studying, measuring and broadly communicating the effects of government policies,
entrepreneurship and choice on their well-being.
To protect the Institute’s
independence, it does not accept grants
from governments or contracts for research.
Visit http://www.fraserinstitute.org/
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