Wait times for medical treatment in Canada by province median 2023 | Statista (2024)

FAQs

Wait times for medical treatment in Canada by province median 2023 | Statista? ›

In other words, the median wait from a referral by GP to treatment in Canada reached an average of 27.7 weeks in 2023. However, the median waiting times in Canada ranged from 22 weeks in Ontario to 57 weeks in Nova Scotia.

Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2022 is a new study that finds Canada's health-care wait times reached 27.4 weeks in 2022—the longest ever recorded—and 195 per cent higher than the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited in 1993, when the Fraser Institute began tracking medical wait times.

Studies by the Commonwealth Fund found that 42% of Canadians waited 2 hours or more in the emergency room, vs. 29% in the U.S.; 57% waited 4 weeks or more to see a specialist, vs.

Median wait time 1 varied substantially among different specialty groups, with the longest wait time for plastic surgery (159 days; IQR = 59 to 365 days) and the shortest for infectious diseases (14 days; IQR = 6 to 271 days).

Reduce Physical Paperwork

Intake paperwork also backs up the waiting room and delays patients from being treated. If they need to complete forms on paper after arriving, this requires more time spent without seeing a medical professional.

In addition, the median waiting time from a specialist appointment to treatment was 13.1 weeks. In other words, the median wait from a referral by GP to treatment in Canada reached an average of 27.7 weeks in 2023. However, the median waiting times in Canada ranged from 22 weeks in Ontario to 57 weeks in Nova Scotia.

WAIT TIME BY SPECIALITY

Cardiovascular surgery had a median wait of 13.1 weeks until treatment, followed by general surgeries with a median of 21.7 weeks. The longest wait time from general practitioner to treatment in Canada is for plastic surgery with a median wait of 52.4 weeks.

CMAJ: Why are wait times so bad in Canada? Simpson: There are bottlenecks everywhere. A lot of delays are driven by the fact that hospitals operate at very high capacity because there are large numbers of patients requiring alternate levels of care [who have nowhere else to go].

Canada fares better than the United States with regard to coverage, cost, and health outcomes. While overall access is better in Canada, patients are sometimes required to endure longer wait times than in the United States.

The Best Healthcare Systems in the World in 2024

What country has the best healthcare, according to this assessment? Singapore comes in at No. 1! Other countries with the best healthcare are listed below.

Which province has the best healthcare system in Canada? ›

British Columbia and Ontario are the top-rated provinces. Not only do they rank highest within Canada, B.C. places 3rd among all the comparator regions and scores an “A” grade on the overall Health report card, while Ontario finishes with a “B” grade and ranks 7th overall.

Wait times for medical procedures across Canada are some of the longest in the developed world and are far longer than they used to be. A shortage of doctors is often cited as a primary factor behind this problem.

A survey of medical practitioners reported that, in 2022, patients in Canada could expect to wait a median of 5.4 weeks for a CT scan and 10.6 weeks for an MRI scan, with variation between provinces; some provinces reported a median of 7 to 8 weeks for a CT exam and 12 to 20 weeks for an MRI exam.

The average waiting time in more than 80% of the procedures is one third longer than Canadian physicians consider clinically reasonable. If care required diagnostic imaging, waiting times are even longer. Canadians are sacrificing access to modern medical technology for first dollar coverage for primary care.

Last year, the wait to see a specialist was more than three-and-a-half times longer at 12.4 weeks, while the wait for treatment nearly doubled to 13.4 weeks. In other words, total wait times in B.C. more than doubled from 10.4 weeks in 1993 to 25.8 weeks in 2022.

Canada is facing a serious health human resource crisis in many professions, profoundly affecting nursing and medicine. The Canadian Nursing Association estimates a shortage of 60,000 nurses alone.

Premji: There's a limited number of specialists, limited operating room time allocated to surgeons, limited machines for advanced imaging, and that keeps patients on wait lists for long periods.

Canada fares better than the United States with regard to coverage, cost, and health outcomes. While overall access is better in Canada, patients are sometimes required to endure longer wait times than in the United States.

The NHS Constitution sets a standard that 92% of people waiting for elective (non-urgent) treatment (such as cataract surgery or a knee replacement) should wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to their first treatment.