Canada not doing very well decreasing hospital wait times: report
Posted June 3, 2014 5:02 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – BC still has a lot of work to do to decrease the time people are waiting at hospitals, according to a new report.
It comes from Wait Time Alliance and suggests the province could do much better if it makes some of the major changes like governments in Ontario and Saskatchewan have already done.
It also finds Canadians wait longer in ERs than people in other countries with publicly funded health systems, with 27 per cent sitting more than four hours. That’s compared to one per cent in the Netherlands and five per cent in the UK.
In a statement to News1130 the province acknowledges wait times are slightly up in some cases but it says BC is facing unprecedented demand for health care services which puts pressure on wait lists.
From 2000/2001 to 2012/2013 there was a 26 per cent increase in the number of surgical procedures done in BC, and government states more than half of those were never on a wait list.
