OTTAWA -- Wait times for surgery or other specialized treatment hit an all-time high of 18.3 weeks in 2007, according to a report published Monday by The Fraser Institute.
The right-wing think-tank released a study that found the total median waiting time for patients between referral from a family doctor and treatment was up from 17.8 weeks the previous year.
The times were measured in 12 different medical specialties in 10 provinces.
The increase was mainly due to longer waits for seeing a specialist once a patient had been referred by a general practitioner, the report said.
"Despite government promises and the billions of dollars funnelled into the Canadian health-care system, the average patient waited more than 18 weeks in 2007 between seeing their family doctor and receiving the surgery or treatment they required," said Nadeem Esmail, co-author of the report, titled: Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada.
Total wait times increased in six provinces: Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. They decreased in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Ontario recorded the shortest wait time overall at 15 weeks. That province had the shortest wait to see a specialist -- 7.6 weeks -- and the shortest wait for treatment once the patient had seen a specialist -- 7.3 weeks.
The second shortest wait time overall was in British Columbia at 19 weeks; followed by Quebec at 19.4 weeks. The longest wait time overall was in Saskatchewan where patients had to wait 27.2 weeks to finally get treatment.
The study examined median wait times for three kinds of imaging technologies: CT scans, MRIs and ultrasounds. In British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, patients waited about one month for a CT scan. The longest wait occurred in Manitoba where it was two months.
Patients in Newfoundland waited even longer for a MRI -- 20 weeks -- while patients in Ontario were only on the waiting list for 7.8 weeks. Patients needing an ultrasound in Price Edward Island and Manitoba were out of luck for about 10 weeks but not in Alberta or Ontario where the wait was two weeks.
Among the various specialties included in the study, the longest waits between a referral and treatment nationally were in orthopedic surgery, 38.1 weeks; plastic surgery, 34.8 weeks; and neurosurgery, 27.2 weeks.
The specialty with the shortest wait was medical oncology at 4.2 weeks, followed by radiation treatment at 5.7 weeks and then elective cardiovascular surgery at 8.4 weeks. The report found large increases between 2006 and 2007 in the waits for internal medicine, an extra 4.9 weeks, gynecology, another 2.1 weeks, and urology, 1.9 weeks more.
-- CanWest News Service
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