Canada’s health-care wait times hit 25.6 weeks in 2021—longest ever recorded

VANCOUVER—Canadian patients waited longer than ever this year for medical treatment, 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 of 25.6 weeks—the longest ever recorded—and 175 per cent higher than the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited in 1993, when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times for medically necessary elective treatments. “The results of this year’s survey suggest that COVID-19 and related hospital closures have exacerbated, but are not the cause of Canada’s historic wait times challenges,” said Bacchus Barua, director of the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies and co-author of Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2021.