Waiting for treatment has become a defining characteristic of Canadian health care. In order to document the queues for visits to specialists and for diagnostic and surgical procedures in the country, the Fraser Institute has—for over two decades—surveyed specialist physicians across 12 specialties and 10 provinces. This edition of Waiting Your Turn indicates that, overall, waiting times for medically necessary treatment have increased since last year. Specialist physicians surveyed report a median waiting time of 22.6 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment—longer than the wait of 20.9 weeks reported in 2019. This year’s wait time is the longest wait time recorded in this survey’s history and is 143% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks. There is a great deal of variation in the total waiting time faced by patients across the provinces. Ontario reports the shortest total wait—17.4 weeks—while Prince Edward Island rep...
A discussion on political, economic and social issues in British Columbia, and Canada