VANCOUVER—Wait times for medically necessary treatment hit a new record in 2017 and eclipsed 20 weeks for a second year in a row, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
The study, an annual survey of physicians from across Canada, reports a median wait time in 2017 of 21.2 weeks—the longest ever recorded. By comparison, Canadians waited 9.3 weeks in 1993 when the Fraser Institute first reported wait times for medically necessary elective treatments.