Surgical waits vary a lot between Ontario hospitals: study

Authors urge province to better co-ordinate waitlists for non-urgent surgery

Mike Crawley · CBC News · Posted: Aug 16, 2024 4:00 AM EDT

A new study analyzes the time patients in Ontario wait, from the doctor’s decision to operate until the date of surgery, for five common non-emergency operations. (Turgut Yeter/CBC)

A new study shows "enormous" differences around Ontario in wait times for common surgeries, with the average patient at some hospitals waiting as much as 15 times longer than patients referred elsewhere for the same procedure.

The study analyzes the time patients wait, from the doctor's decision to operate until the actual date of surgery, for five common non-emergency operations: hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery, gallbladder removal and uterine surgery.

The authors found what they describe as "extreme variability" in those wait times, both between different hospitals and between different surgeons. They also found dramatic differences in waits among patients with the same hospital or surgeon.

Just boosting the overall availability of surgeries may not help Ontario bring down the extremely long waits unless the province better co-ordinates its wait-list system, the authors say.

"Each patient is part of a disconnected queue linked to a single surgeon," the authors write in the peer-reviewed study, published in PLoS ONE, an online scientific journal. 

"Increasing the supply of surgical services will not necessarily reduce the longest wait times without a co-ordinated system that better matches demand to supply."

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