Toronto 
Fraser Institue in a new study, The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care, 2022, says Canada’s long wait time to access medically necessary treatment cost Canadians almost $4.1 billion in lost wages and productivity last year.
The non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank in its December 2021 report on health care wait times in Canada which was based on an annual survey of Canadian physicians found that the national median waiting time from specialist appointment to treatment was 14.5 weeks.
The study’s estimation of the cost comes from an assumption that “13.2% of people waiting for treatment in 2021 experienced significant difficulties in their daily lives as a result of their untreated medical condition, and thus lost productivity while waiting for treatment.” This is derived from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey.
Fraser Institute says an estimated 1.4 million patients waited for medically necessary treatment last year and each lost an estimated $2,848 on average due to lost wages and reduced productivity during working hours. This cost does not account for the additional 11.1-week wait to see a specialist after receiving a referral from a general practitioner.
The report says the largest driver for the increase in cost was the higher costs associated with waiting for orthopedic procedures.
The cost of waiting for health care varies by province as wait times and incomes vary across Canada.
Credit: Fraser Institute
According to the report, the highest cost of waiting per patient is in Nova Scotia at $6,343. Outside the maritime provinces, Manitobans faced the highest per-patient cost of waiting at $3,519 followed by Albertans at $3,199, and residents of Saskatchewan at $3,129.
Average value of time lost during the work week in 2021 for patients waiting for medically necessary treatment (by province):
- British Columbia – $2,611
- Alberta – $3,199
- Saskatchewan – $3,129
- Manitoba – $3,519
- Ontario – $1,855
- Quebec – $2,811
- New Brunswick – $3,235
- Nova Scotia – $6,343
- Prince Edward Island – $2,826
- Newfoundland and Labrador – $1,985
In the report, Fraser Institue says the decreases in the total cost of public queues in Newfoundland & Labrador and Prince Edward Island “should be interpreted with caution due to missing data in these provinces, which has resulted in an incomplete accounting of the costs that patients bear.”
According to the report, the estimate only takes into account the financial costs for the individual waiting for treatment and excludes costs of care provided by family members (in time spent caring for the individual waiting for treatment) and their lost productivity due to difficulty or mental anguish. Non-monetary medical costs like increased risk of mortality or adverse events that result from long delays for treatment, are also not included in this estimate.
The estimate also does not take into account reduced capacity outside of the work week. Fraser Institute says 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 almost $12.4 billion, or about $8,706 per person.
The report co-author Bacchus Barua said, “Long health-care wait times mean lost wages and a reduced quality of life for patients. While combatting COVID-19 certainly requires our immediate attention, we may need to consider policy options that can benefit all patients and alleviate strain on our public health-care system.”
The detailed report is available here.
