Canadians Waited an Average 27.7 Weeks for Health Care in 2023, Report Finds

Canada’s average health care wait times have hit a record high of 27.7 weeks, according to a recently-released report by the Fraser Institute. The 27.7-week figure is the longest wait time in the survey’s 30-year history and is 198 percent longer than the 1993 average of 9.3 weeks. While the pandemic has played a role in increased patient wait times, it is not completely to blame, said one of the report’s authors. “COVID-19 and related hospital closures have exacerbated, but are not the cause, of Canada’s historic wait times challenges,” Fraser Institute director of health policy studies Bacchus Barua said in a press release. “Previous results revealed that patients waited an estimated 20.9 weeks for medically necessary elective care in 2019—long before the pandemic started.”...