OTTAWA - A study says nearly 42,000 additional surgeries in wait-time-priority areas were performed last year, a seven-per-cent increase compared to the previous year.
The four surgeries, identified as priorities by the first ministers in 2004, are hip and knee replacements, cataracts, cardiac revascularization and cancer.
The report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information says the new 2005-2006 numbers are significant, because the average annual increase in those surgeries was only one per cent per year in the four previous years.
The institute says the increase was driven by a surge in the volume of joint replacements and cataract surgeries.
Hip replacement rates grew by 12 per cent and knee replacements grew by almost twice as much at 20 per cent, while cataract surgery grew by 10 per cent.
Cancer and cardiac revascularization procedures also saw modest growth.
Last week, a survey by the Canadian Medical Association suggested doctors believe strategies to reduce health-care waiting times are not working.
Dr. Collin McMillan, the association's president, suggested the priority given to some areas was causing longer waits in other areas.
The CIHI report, which doesn't include Quebec, does not look at specific waiting times but rather the actual number of surgeries performed. It found the rate of procedures outside the priority areas increased by two per cent after taking population growth and aging into account.
CIHI president Glenda Yeates noted that some have questioned whether the focus on priority areas has come at the expense of other types of surgery.
"Our study shows that even with last year's significant growth in priority area procedures, the number of patients receiving other types of surgeries has remained relatively stable overall,'' she said in a release.
