Patients in the province faced a median wait of 33.3 weeks between seeing a general practitioner and receiving treatment.
health-care wait times in Canada
The inability to provide timely access to care precedes the pandemic.
In 2021, Canadians could expect to wait 25.6 weeks (on average) between referral to treatment.
Policymakers in Canada should learn how other countries with older populations are mitigating demographic challenges.
The provincial government contracted several private surgical clinics to help clear the backlog.
The estimated time to clear the backlog has been reduced from 24 months to 15 months.
In 2019, more than 166,000 patients in the province were waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist.
Alberta hopes to mirror Saskatchewan’s successful wait time-reduction.
Canadians must wait 41.7 weeks (on average) to receive medically necessary elective orthopaedic surgery.
Australia, Germany and the Netherlands all allow more private-sector involvement in health care than Canada.