Excessive wait times for medically necessary surgery and treatment cost close to $3.6 billion in lost wages and productivity in 2022, according to a new research report by the Fraser Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care, 2023, released May 9, values only the hours lost during the average work week. It said an estimated nearly 1.23 million Canadians were on waiting lists for medical treatment in 2022.
With an average wait time averaging 14.8 weeks between seeing a specialist and receiving treatment, the cost per patient waiting worked out to $2,925.
“This is a conservative estimate that places no intrinsic value on the time individuals spend waiting in a reduced capacity outside of the work week. Valuing all hours of the week, including evenings and weekends but excluding eight hours of sleep per night, would increase the estimated cost of waiting to $10.9 billion, or about $8,897 per person,” said a summary of the findings by the study’s co-authors, policy analyst Mackenzie Moir and director of health policy studies Bacchus Barua, both with the Fraser Institute….