The Fraser Institute: Despite Substantial Spending Increases, Surgical Wait Times No Shorter in 2009 Than 2000-2001

CALGARY, ALBERTA, Oct 29 (MARKET WIRE) --
Canadians seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment are enduring a
median wait time of 16.1 weeks, roughly the same delay they experienced
in 2000-2001, even though governments have made substantial increases in
health care spending since then, according to the Fraser Institute's
annual report on hospital wait times.

"After nearly 10 years of spending increases, Canadians are still waiting
113 days, on average, for medically necessary treatment, just as in
2000-2001. While that wait time is shorter than it was last year, it is
still a far cry from what Canadians should expect from their expensive
health care program," said Nadeem Esmail, Fraser Institute Director of
Health System Performance Studies and author of the 19th annual edition
of Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada.

"Throwing more money at a fundamentally broken system will not solve the
wait time problem. Canadians deserve health care they can depend on, and
it's time for politicians of all political stripes to admit the current
system is a failure."

The hospital waiting list survey measures median waiting times to
document the degree to which queues for visits to specialists and for
diagnostic and surgical procedures are used to control health care
expenditures. The report measures the wait times between referral by a
general practitioner and consultation with a specialist, the times
between seeing the specialist and receiving treatment, and the total wait
times from GP referral to treatment. The full report, along with charts
showing wait times for all provinces and medical procedures, is available
at www.fraserinstitute.org.

This year's report shows the main decrease in wait times occurred in the
time between a consultation with a specialist and receiving treatment,
which decreased to 8.0 weeks from 8.7 weeks in 2008.

"While this is indeed an improvement since 2008, our research shows this
delay for treatment is well above what health care professionals would
consider clinically reasonable, which is a median wait of 5.8 weeks,"
said Esmail.

According to the report, the median wait time to see a specialist after a
referral from a general practitioner also dropped since last year from
8.5 weeks to 8.2.

Total waiting time

Ontario recorded the shortest total wait time (the wait between referral
by a general practitioner and receiving treatment), at 12.5 weeks, a
decrease from 13.3 weeks in 2008. Manitoba had the second shortest total
wait at 14.3 weeks, down from 17.2 weeks in 2008. Quebec at 16.6 weeks
was third, a decrease from 18.7 weeks in 2008.

Despite the overall decrease in national median waiting times since 2008,
some provinces experienced increases in total wait times. Newfoundland &
Labrador had the longest total wait time at 27.3 weeks, an increase from
24.4 in 2008. PEI jumped to 26.7 weeks from 24.3 in 2008 while New
Brunswick had the third longest wait time at 25.8 weeks, up from 23.1.
Alberta rose to 19.6 weeks, up from 18.5 in 2008.

Wait times for the other provinces are 25.2 weeks in Saskatchewan, down
from 28.8 in 2008; 23.1 weeks in Nova Scotia, down from 27.6 in 2008; and
17.0 weeks in British Columbia, the same as last year.

The first wait: Between general practitioner and specialist consultation

The provinces with the shortest wait times between referral by a general
practitioner and consultation with a specialist are Manitoba (6.3 weeks),
Ontario (6.7 weeks), and BC (7.8 weeks).

The longest waits for consultation with a specialist were recorded in PEI
(14.5 weeks), New Brunswick (14.3 weeks), and Newfoundland & Labrador
(14.0 weeks).

The second wait: Between specialist consultation and treatment

The waiting time between specialist consultation and treatment, the
second stage of waiting, is the lowest in Ontario (5.8 weeks). Manitoba
is the second lowest (8.0 weeks), and Quebec is third at 8.2 weeks.

The longest waits are found in Saskatchewan (14.0 weeks), Newfoundland &
Labrador (13.2 weeks), and PEI at 12.2 weeks.

Waiting by specialty

Among the various specialties, the shortest total waits (between referral
from a GP and treatment) existed for radiation oncology (4.8 weeks),
medical oncology (5.1 weeks), and elective cardiovascular surgery (8.2
weeks). Conversely, patients waited longest between a GP referral and
orthopedic surgery (33.7 weeks), neurosurgery (32.9 weeks), and plastic
surgery (29.9 weeks).

There were large decreases between 2008 and 2009 in the waits for plastic
surgery (down 5.6 weeks), ophthalmology (down 3.4 weeks), orthopedic
surgery (down 3.0 weeks), radiation oncology (down 1.0 week), and general
surgery (down 0.9 weeks), while wait times for internal medicine
decreased slightly (down 0.2 weeks). These decreases were offset by a
deterioration for patients receiving treatment in otolaryngology (up 1.2
weeks), neurosurgery (up 1.2 weeks), elective cardiovascular surgery (up
0.8 weeks), urology (up 0.6 weeks), medical oncology (up 0.5 weeks), and
gynecology (up 0.1 weeks).

Number of procedures for which people are waiting

Throughout Canada, the total number of procedures for which people are
waiting in 2009 is 694,161, a decrease of 7.5 per cent from the estimated
750,794 procedures in 2008.

Assuming that each person was waiting for only one procedure, 2.08 per
cent of Canadians were waiting for treatment in 2009, which varied from a
low of 1.49 per cent in Ontario to a high of 4.29 per cent in
Newfoundland & Labrador.

"In spite of large increases in health spending, Canadians are waiting 73
per cent longer for surgery than they did in 1993. Clearly, Canada needs
to adopt the health care approaches of other developed countries, like
Switzerland for example, where wait times for care are not taken for
granted. It's about time Canadians stop overpaying for a defective system
and start getting the timely access to health care they need, deserve,
and are already paying for," said Esmail.

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The Fraser Institute is an independent research and educational
organization with locations across North America and partnerships in more
than 70 countries. Its mission is to measure, study, and communicate the
impact of competitive markets and government intervention on the welfare
of individuals. To protect the Institute's independence, it does not
accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit
www.fraserinstitute.org.

Contacts:
Fraser Institute - Media Contact
Nadeem Esmail
Director of Health System Performance Studies
(403) 216-7175 ext. 422
nadeem.esmail@fraserinstitute.org

Fraser Institute
Dean Pelkey
Director of Communications
(604) 714-4582
dean.pelkey@fraserinstitute.org
www.fraserinstitute.org

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