The trends are coming to light as the province pledges to improve surgical waits<\/a> and as it forges ahead with a push to use chartered surgical facilities for less complex procedures.<\/p>\n \u201cIt scares me a little,\u201d said Stacey Litvinchuk, who, as a former senior program officer for surgery operations and lead of the Alberta Surgical Initiative for Alberta Health Services, watches the numbers closely.<\/p>\n Litvinchuk is particularly worried about heart and cancer patients.<\/p>\n “We’re seeing wait times for cancer surgeries and cardiac surgeries get worse. They’re increasing,” said Litvinchuk, who now works as a health-care consultant.\u00a0<\/p>\n The latest numbers show just 11 per cent of cardiac bypass (coronary artery bypass graft) surgeries performed in October 2025 were done within the recommended time frame.<\/p>\n During the same month in 2019, it was 60 per cent.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a critical surgery,” said Litvinchuk. “The wait time windows are two weeks or less.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, some people are waiting months for the surgery, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey could die of their disease \u2026 That\u2019s very scary.\u201d<\/p>\n Cancer surgery waits<\/p>\n Litvinchuk is equally concerned about cancer surgery trends.<\/p>\n Waits for the top five cancer surgeries (bladder, breast, colorectal, lung and prostate) are also\u00a0 deteriorating.<\/p>\n In October 2019, 65 per cent of those cancer surgeries were completed within recommended times.\u00a0<\/p>\n Six years later, that dropped to just over half (51 per cent).<\/p>\n \u201cIf somebody’s waiting for a critical cancer surgery, their cancer could advance to points where we can’t treat it anymore,\u201d said Litvinchuk.<\/p>\n The recommended treatment window for lung cancer patients, for example, is 14 days, according to Litvinchuk.\u00a0<\/p>\n Provincial data shows the median wait (the time at which 50 per cent of people have received the surgery) is double that.<\/p>\n Just 31 per cent of patients had their prostate cancer surgeries done within recommended times, the latest numbers show.<\/p>\n Breast cancer patients are also facing longer waits.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe are behind. We are not keeping up with the demand,\u201d\u00a0said Dr. May Lynn Quan, a Calgary general surgeon specializing in breast cancer.<\/p>\n In October 2025, the percentage of breast cancer surgeries performed within clinical targets was 57 per cent, compared to 81 per cent six years earlier.<\/p>\n According to Quan, the standard provincial target for most breast cancer patients (invasive breast cancer) is to have surgery within four weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many women, she said, are waiting twice as long.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are fearful that it’s growing out of control,\u201d said Quan.<\/p>\n Most breast cancers, detected early through screening, are slow growing, she noted.<\/p>\n \u201cBut at some point it does matter \u2026 We sometimes find out later that the cancer was more aggressive than we thought. And at some point it goes from being isolated to the breast to spreading to lymph nodes.”<\/p>\n According to Quan, hospital staffing and capacity have not kept up with the growing number of Albertans with cancer.<\/p>\n \u201cThe part that\u2019s alarming to me is that it\u2019s not getting any better,\u201d said Quan. \u201cIt\u2019s getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Chartered surgical facilities<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769787789_50_default.jpg\")
Stacey Litvinchuk is a former senior program officer for surgery operations and lead of the Alberta Surgical Initiative for Alberta Health Services. (CBC News)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769787789_766_default.jpg\")
Dr. May Lynn Quan is a general surgeon specializing in breast cancer at the Foothills Medical Centre and the Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre. (Jennifer Lee\/CBC)<\/p>\n