Number of Canadians on Health Care Waitlists Rises in 2023
- The number of Canadians waiting for surgery, a diagnostic scan, or to see a specialist has risen by more than 140,000 since late 2022.
- Saskatchewan, Quebec and Manitoba saw best improvements
REGINA, SK: New data released today by SecondStreet.org shows that over 3.1 million Canadians are confirmed to be waiting for surgery, a diagnostic scan, or to see a specialist. Since a number of provinces didn’t provide complete data, the actual total is estimated to be closer to 5.1 million patients waiting – roughly one in eight Canadians.
SecondStreet.org launched CanadaWaits.ca in November 2022 to publicly track the number of Canadians on waiting lists. Data at that time showed there were nearly 3 million Canadians waiting.
“Overall, we’ve seen a rise in patients waiting. This is not good news,,” said SecondStreet.org Communications Director Dom Lucyk. “We’ve seen positive movement in some parts of the country, but overall, we’re going in the wrong direction.”
Some highlights from the research include:
- Ontario saw progress on surgical waitlists, with a 6.2% drop. However, its diagnostic waitlist rose significantly ‒ nearly 44%. This suggests that there may be a bottleneck when it comes to diagnostic scans.
- This update showed a drop in transparency from some governments. For example, New Brunswick only provided surgical numbers, where it had previously provided data on diagnostic and specialist waitlists.
- Saskatchewan, Quebec and Manitoba all saw progress on surgical and diagnostic waitlists. However, Manitoba provides much less complete data, only covering four types of surgical procedures and five types of diagnostic imaging.
Data for each province can be seen in the table below:
| Province | Surgery | Specialist | Diagnostic | Date |
| BC | 91,821 (+3.4%) | – | – | SEPT 14, 2023 |
| AB | 76,475 (+1.6%) | 225,122 (N/A) | 114,887 (+5.6%) | SEP-OCT 2023 |
| SK* | 29,713 (-17.4%) | – | 18,965 (-8.0%) | JUN-JUL 2023 |
| MB** | 7,040 (-20.9%) | – | 47,786 (-15.1%) | AUG, 2023 |
| ON | 215,275 (-6.2%) | – | 661,747 (+43.8%) | OCT 31, 2023 |
| QC | 157,331 (-2.1%) | 817,542 (+3.0%) | 413,823 (-41.5%) | SEP-OCT 2023 |
| NB | 25,351 (-7.0%) | – | – | SEPT 30, 2023 |
| NL | 6,816 (-62.9%) | – | 78,761 (+52.5%) | SEP-OCT 2023 |
| NS | 20,116 (-23.4%) | 29,007 (+3.0%) | 82,834 (N/A) | OCT 2023 / JUN 2022 |
| PE | – | – | – | OCT 12, 2023 |
| YT | – | – | – | NOV 15, 2023 |
| NT | 872 (+32.9%) | 9,989 (+969.5%) | 443 (+105.1%) | NOV 2022 – JAN 2023 |
| NU | 717 (+13.4%) | 2,297 (-39.1%) | 123 (+310.0%) | OCT 8, 2023 |
| TOTALS: | 631,527 | 1,083,957 | 1,419,369 | |
| GRAND TOTAL: | 3,134,853 (+4.8%) |
* Saskatchewan and Manitoba numbers accessed from public databases on Dec 13, 2023
** Manitoba only provides data for four types of surgeries and five types of diagnostic scans, so numbers are underreported.
“There are many steps governments can take to lower these numbers and get more Canadians the care they need,” said SecondStreet.org President Colin Craig. “We’re seeing some good changes, but if we see more, we’ll see improvements to patient care. For leadership, we should be looking to European countries with better performing universal health care systems.”
SecondStreet.org regularly updates CanadaWaits.ca with the latest government data on waitlists.
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