Canadians still waiting longer for surgeries than before COVID

National Post

a day ago

The massive surgical backlogs left after rolling pandemic lockdowns are clearing but Canadians are still waiting longer than they were pre-COVID for new hips and knees, cancer surgeries and other 'priority' procedures, new data show.
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Even though 26 per cent more hip and knee replacements were done in 2024 than 2019, it still wasn't enough to meet the need: just 68 per cent of Canadians received a hip replacement within the 26-week benchmark last year, compared to 75 per cent in 2019.
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For those needing a knee replacement, 61 per cent got a slot in the operating room within the 182-day threshold, compared with 70 per cent in 2019, even though 21 per cent more knee replacements were performed in 2024 than in 2019.
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Median wait times for breast, bladder, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer surgery also rose, with prostate cancer seeing the biggest bump in wait times, an extra nine days over 2019.
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Wait times for scans to diagnose diseases and injuries also increased, 'with MRI scans requiring an additional 15 days and CTS scans three more days compared with 2019,' the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) reported in a background release.
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Canadians waited a median 57 days for an MRI scan in 2024. One in 10 waited 198 days.
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The longer people wait, the more they deteriorate. Delays getting to an operating room 'can lead to disease progression, increased symptoms of anxiety and depression, risk of mental health flareups and worsening of surgical and nonsurgical patient outcomes,' Canadian researchers have warned.
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Hospitals across the country pushed back non-urgent surgeries during the early waves of COVID to free up beds. Almost 600,000 fewer operations were performed in the first 22 months of the pandemic alone compared to 2019, CIHI reported.
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The backlog has meant that by the time people see a surgeon, their problem is more complex than it would have been in the past, Dr. James Howard, chief of orthopedic surgery at University Hospital – London Health Sciences Centre said in the news release.
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Canada's aging baby boomer generation, with arthritis and other joint conditions, is also putting pressure on the system.
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'So even with surgeons collectively working as much as they can and completing more surgeries than we have in the past, we are not seeing wait times come down due to the complexity and volume of patients presenting to orthopedic surgeons,' Howard said.
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While case numbers are bouncing back — five per cent more surgeries of all types were performed in 2023 than in 2019 — the volumes still haven't kept up with population growth (seven per cent over the same period) or the 10 per cent rise in demand for surgery among those 65 and older, CIHI reported.