Atlantic Canadians have the longest health-care wait times in the country, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute.
The national median wait time from referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist now stands at 30 weeks.
It is the longest ever recorded — longer than the 27.7 weeks in 2023 and the 20.9 weeks in 2019, before the pandemic.
“Long wait times can result in increased suffering for patients, lost productivity at work, a decreased quality of life, and in the worst cases, disability or death,” Mackenzie Moir, senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute and study co-author, said in a news release.
The situation is much more dire in Atlantic Canada, with all four provinces well above the national average for wait times.
Prince Edward Island recorded the longest median wait time at 77.4 weeks, up from 55.2 weeks a year earlier.
The median wait time in New Brunswick is 69.4 weeks, compared to 52.6 weeks last year.
Newfoundland and Labrador recorded a wait time of 43.2 weeks, up from 33.3 weeks.
The situation has improved slightly in Nova Scotia, where the wait time has fallen to 39.1 weeks from 56.7 weeks.
“As families across Atlantic Canada know all too well, long wait times remain a defining characteristic of the patient experience in the region,” Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the study, said in the release.
The annual study is based on a survey of Canadian physicians across 12 medical specialties, including several types of surgery.
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