EDITORIAL: Dying for health care in Canada

A new report released last week by secondstreet.org estimates that at least 3.1 million Canadians are on provincial waiting lists for surgery, diagnostic scans, or seeing a specialist. Based on partial data from provincial governments obtained through freedom of information requests, it also estimated more than 58,000 patients have died on these waiting lists since 2018, including at least 17,000 last year.

While not every death is attributable to being on a waiting list, the reality is that Canadians are paying top dollar for health care, while enduring some of the longest wait times for medical treatment in the developed world. A recent Fraser Institute study reported that median wait times for medical treatment across 12 specialities in 10 provinces this year were the highest they’ve ever been in the three decades during which comparable records have been kept — 27.7 weeks from a referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist, compared to 9.3 weeks in 1993.

Among 10 comparable universal health care systems that measure medical wait times (excluding the U.S. which does not have universal care) Canada’s were the longest, with the lowest percentage of patients waiting four weeks or less to see a specialist (38%) and the lowest percentage waiting four months or less for elective surgery (62%).

Long wait times, are a symptom of other problems within our health care system which have been known about for years. Canada ranks 28th out of 30 developed countries with universal health care that are members of the Organization for Economic Co operation and Development, in the number of doctors (2.8 per 1,000 population); 25th out of 29 for MRIs (10.3 per million); 26th out of 30 for CT scanners (14.9 per million) and 23rd out of 29 for the number of beds dedicated to physical care (2.3 per 1,000); Meanwhile, the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported last year that total health spending in Canada was expected to reach $331 billion, or $8,563 per Canadian, last year, among the highest expenditures on health care in the developed world.

Clearly, the status quo is unacceptable. If there’s one thing provincial and federal governments should be working on together in 2024, it’s to lower these unacceptably long — and dangerous — wait times..