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Vancouver. British Columbia, December 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – A new study released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s independent, non-partisan public policy think tank, found that Canadian patients are waiting longer for medical treatment this year than ever before Time is long.
The study is an annual survey of doctors across Canada, reporting a median wait time of 25.6 weeks-the longest on record-175% higher than the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited in 1993, when the Fraser Institute began tracking Medical waiting time. Necessary selective treatment.
“This year’s survey results show that COVID-19 and related hospital closures have intensified, but it is not the cause of Canada’s historic waiting time challenge,” said Bucks Baru, director and co-author of the Fraser Institute Health Policy Research Center Said Bacchus Barua.of Your Turn: Waiting Time for Canadian Healthcare in 2021.
“The results of the same survey show that in 2019, patients will wait for medically necessary elective care for an estimated 20.9 weeks-long before the pandemic started.”
The study investigated the total waiting time for patients in 12 medical specialties from referral to specialist consultations from general practitioners (ie family doctors) to the final treatment of patients.
Among the provinces, Ontario has the shortest waiting time at 18.5 weeks, which is still higher than the 17.4 weeks in 2020. Nova Scotia has the longest waiting time at 53.2 weeks.
Among the various specialties, the longest waiting time in the country is the referral between GP referral and neurosurgery (49.2 weeks), and the shortest waiting time for radiotherapy (3.7 weeks).
Patients have also experienced a long waiting time for various diagnostic techniques in various provinces. This year, Canadians may have to wait 5.2 weeks for a computed tomography (CT) scan, 10.2 weeks for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and 3.6 weeks for an ultrasound scan.
Crucially, doctors report that their patients waited for treatment (after seeing a specialist) for six weeks longer than they thought were clinically reasonable.
This year, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the response rate of the survey, but about one in ten doctors (9%) across the country still participated in the survey, with a response rate of more than 1,100.
“Long waiting times are still a defining feature of Canada’s healthcare system,” said Mackenzie Moir, a policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report.
“And they are not just minor inconveniences, they can cause increased patient suffering, decreased work efficiency, decreased quality of life, and in the worst case, disability or death.”
Average waiting time in each province (in weeks)
| Province |
The full story can be found on Benzinga.com
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