A typical Canadian seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007, according to new research by the research organization, the Fraser Institute.
That's up slightly from 2006, when the time between referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist was 17.8 weeks.
The shortest wait was 15 weeks in Ontario, followed by British Columbia at 19 weeks, says the study, entitled "Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada." The longest wait in Saskatchewan, at 27.2 weeks, followed by New Brunswick, at 25.2 weeks.
The survey found there were two wait times: the first was the wait between getting the referral from the GP to having a consultation with a specialist. Then there was a second waiting period for the actual treatment.
The shortest total waits occurred in medical oncology (an average 4.2 weeks), radiation oncology (5.7 weeks), and elective cardiovascular surgery (8.4 weeks). Patients waited longest for orthopaedic surgery (38.1 weeks), plastic surgery (34.8 weeks), and neurosurgery (27.2 weeks).
Diagnostic testing
Patients across Canada also experienced significant waiting times for diagnostic tests such as CT scans (computed tomography), MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging), and ultrasounds.
The median wait for a CT scan across Canada was 4.8 weeks, but the longest wait occurred in Manitoba at eight weeks. The median wait for an MRI across Canada was 10.1 weeks. Patients in Ontario waited only 7.8 weeks, while Newfoundlanders waited 20 weeks.
The median wait for ultrasound was 3.9 weeks across Canada. Alberta and Ontario had the shortest wait, at two weeks, while Prince Edward Island and Manitoba had the longest at 10 weeks.
Nadeem Esmail, co-author of the report, says while some provinces are promising to reduce wait times in some areas, other areas are getting worse. He says the current changes aren't working.
"The only way to solve the system's most curable disease - lengthy wait times that are consistently and significantly longer than physicians feel is clinically reasonable - is for substantial reform of the Canadian health care system," he said in a statement.
