Canada’s Median Health-Care Wait Time Hits Record of 30 Weeks

A health-care worker transports a patient at a hospital in Toronto on Dec. 9, 2020. The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette

Canadian patients experienced the longest wait times for medical treatment on record last year, with median delays reaching an unprecedented 30 weeks.

The typical duration that Canadians waited—between receiving a referral from their family doctor to consulting with a specialist and beginning treatment—was 30 weeks, according to a study from the Fraser Institute.

“While most Canadians understand that wait times are a major problem, we’ve now reached an unprecedented and unfortunate milestone for delayed access to care,” Fraser Institute director of health policy studies Bacchus Barua said in a Dec. 12 news release.

Median wait times have jumped 222 percent since the Fraser Institute first began tracking them in 1993. The median wait time is the point at which half of the patients wait less and half wait more.

This year’s median wait time has increased by more than two weeks compared to 27.7 weeks in 2023, the study found. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the mean wait time was 20.9 weeks.

The data, gathered from 1,973 Canadian physicians spanning 12 specialties and 10 provinces, identified Prince Edward Island as the province experiencing the longest wait time at 77.4 weeks. The study authors noted that P.E.I.’s data “should be interpreted with caution” because it received fewer survey responses compared to other provinces.

Atlantic Canada had the longest wait times in the country last year, with Nova Scotia being the only Maritime province with wait times under 40 weeks. Nova Scotia averaged 39.1 weeks followed by Newfoundland at 43.2. New Brunswick’s median wait was 69.4 weeks.

On the other end of the spectrum was Ontario, with the shortest median wait time in the country at 23.6 weeks. Following Ontario was Quebec at 28.9 weeks and British Columbia at 29.5. Saskatchewan had the fourth-best median wait time at 37.2 weeks, followed by Manitoba at 37.9, and Alberta at 38.4.

Specialist and Surgery Wait Times

The typical 30-week wait time patients face can be broken down into a 15-week wait to see a specialist after referral by a general practitioner followed by an additional 15-week wait between consultation with a specialist and receiving treatment.

Doctors who responded to the survey said patients should not have to wait longer than 8.6 weeks to see a specialist. This suggests the average Canadian in need of treatment is facing a delay of 6.4 weeks beyond the clinically acceptable time frame.

Physicians surveyed said 45.1 percent of their patients would agree to undergo their procedure within a week if an opportunity became available. Only 15 percent of their patients were on a waiting list due to their own requests for a delay or postponement, they said.

Orthopedics had the longest wait times at 21.8 weeks to see a specialist and 35.7 weeks until treatment, for a total wait of 57.5 weeks.

Orthopedics was followed by neurosurgery with a 32.2-week wait to see a specialist and a 14-week wait to receive treatment, totalling 46.2 weeks of waiting.

Plastic surgery and gynecology also had total wait times of more than 40 weeks, at 41.4 weeks and 41.3 weeks respectively.

Specialists estimated 1.8 percent of patients received elective treatment in another country during 2023-2024.

Patients also faced delays for other procedures and diagnostic technology, according to the study.

Wait times were longest for MRIs at 16.2 weeks followed by CT scans at 8.1 weeks. Ultrasounds had a 5.2 week wait time. The shortest wait times were for radiation at 4.5 weeks and medical oncology treatments at 4.7 weeks.

The length of wait times for needed procedures can have serious or even fatal consequences for Canadians, Fraser Institute senior policy analyst Mackenzie Moir said.

“Long wait times can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, a decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death,” Moir said in the release.

Overall, Canadians waited for more than 1.5 million procedures, a 28 percent increase from 1.2 million pending procedures in 2023.

The Fraser Institute study comes weeks after SecondStreet.org reported that 51 patients died while waiting for surgery in New Brunswick over the past year.

SecondStreet.org said the data it has collected since 2018 suggests 248 patients have died in the province while waiting for “everything from critical procedures like heart surgery, to significant quality-of-life surgeries like cataract procedures.”