VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The average person will spend more than six months waiting to get medical treatment in BC. That’s according to a new report from the right-leaning Fraser Institute.
“For BC, this is also the longest wait time that we’ve ever had in the province. We measure the wait time as being 25.2 weeks,” explains Bacchus Barua, who authored the report.
The average wait across Canada is just over five months and that’s from initial diagnoses to actual treatment. “In 1993, the [national] wait time between getting a referral from a general practitioner to actually receiving treatment was about 9.3 weeks. In 2016, that wait time was 20 weeks. That is a 115 per cent increase,” says Barua, adding things have only increased over the last two decades.
The report finds the time from referral by a general practitioner to consultation with a specialist has gone up along with the time between a consultations with a specialist to the point where a patient eventually receives treatment.
In 1993, the average wait in BC was 10.7 weeks. “We’re definitely in the middle of the pack. We rank up at about sixth compared to other provinces. And it should be troubling that there is about a five-week difference, compared to the national average,” says Barua.
New Brunswick had the longest wait at 38.8 weeks while both PEI and Nova Scotia also had average waits of 30 weeks or more. “It’s also important to look at the provinces that are doing better than British Columbia. Ontario’s wait time is about 15.6 weeks and Saskatchewan’s wait time is about 16.6 weeks,” says Barua.
Quebec ranked third at 18.9 weeks. The report also breaks down the wait times based on treatment type.
People wait the longest for neurosurgery at just under 47 weeks while medical oncology at 3.7 weeks and radiation oncology at 4.1 weeks have the shortest wait times.