British Columbians are waiting three times longer than they did 30 years ago to receive treatment after being referred by their doctor to a specialist.
It takes an average of 32.2 weeks to see a specialist in B.C. compared to the 10.4 weeks it took in 1993, the Fraser Institute reports in its newly-issued annual survey of wait times across Canada.
“Remarkably long wait times for medically necessary care have become the defining characteristic of the Canadian health care experience,” study author Nadeem Esmail says in a release.
“Long wait times can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death,” added Mackenzie Moir, a co-author of the study.
Wait times in B.C. have increased over the past year, from 29.5 weeks to 32.2 weeks, according to the survey, which is compiled information relayed by family physicians across Canada. It evaluates wait times for 12 medical procedures including several types of surgery.
Although wait times in B.C. have increased year-over-year, they are the second shortest in Canada, after Ontario, at 19.2 weeks. The longest wait time is in New Brunswick, at 61 weeks, more than four times the wait time in that province in the early ‘90s.