Health Care Wait Times in Canada 2024: How Long You Need to Wait For Medical Treatment

The Fraser Institute’s latest report on healthcare wait times reveals that Canadian patients in 2024 faced the longest medical treatment wait times ever recorded.

The median wait time for treatment in Canada for this year was 30 weeks, which is the longest ever recorded, an increase from previous years — 27.7 weeks in 2023, 27.4 weeks in 2022 and 25.6 weeks in 2021.

This duration marks a staggering increase from the 9.3-week wait recorded in 1993.

The findings are highlighted in the “Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2024” report by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian public policy think tank. This year’s survey involved physicians from twelve specialties across ten provinces.

The record-breaking wait time of 30 weeks is from a general practitioner’s referral to treatment.

Credit: Fraser Institute

Fraser Institute collected data from physicians for the study between January 19 and May 31, 2024. The organization received 1,973 responses across 12 specialties. The response rate was 17%.

The report splits the wait times into two parts – referral by a general practitioner to consultation with a specialist and from the consultation with a specialist to the point at which the patient receives treatment.

Among the provinces, Ontario had the shortest median wait time at 23.6 weeks, an increase from 21.6 weeks in 2023. In contrast, Prince Edward Island reported the longest median wait time at 77.4 weeks; however, the report states that this figure should be interpreted with caution due to the smaller number of survey responses compared to other provinces.

While patients in the Atlantic provinces wait the longest – Prince Edward Island 77.4 weeks, New Brunswick (69.4 weeks), Newfoundland and Labrador (43.2 weeks) and Nova Scotia (39.1 weeks), wait times in the prairie provinces also exceeded the national average — Alberta (38.4 weeks), Saskatchewan (37.2 weeks), and Manitoba (37.9 weeks).

Wait times:

Credit: Fraser Institute

Fraser Institute says the wait times for consultation with a specialist following a referral by a general practitioner increased from 14.6 weeks in 2023 to 15.0 weeks in 2024 – a 305% increase from 1993 (3.7 weeks).

The shortest waits occur in Quebec (9.1 weeks), Ontario (12.7 weeks), and British Columbia (15.0 weeks), while Prince Edward Island has the longest (39.8 weeks).

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Specialist-to-treatment wait times also rose, from 13.1 weeks in 2023 to 15.0 weeks in 2024, 167% longer than 1993’s 5.6 weeks. Ontario, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia report the shortest specialist-to-treatment waits, while Prince Edward Island (37.6 weeks), New Brunswick (35.4 weeks), and Quebec (19.8 weeks) experience the longest.

Surgery/Speciality Wait Times:

Among the various specialties, the shortest wait times between a referral by a GP referral to a specialist in 2024 were for radiation oncology (4.5
weeks), medical oncology (4.7 weeks), and elective cardiovascular surgery (12.8 weeks).

Credit: Fraser Institute

In contrast, the longest waits were for orthopedic surgery (57.5 weeks), neurosurgery (46.2 weeks) and plastic surgery (41.4 weeks).

Diagnostic wait times:

Diagnostic technologies also see considerable wait times. Canadians can expect to wait 8.1 weeks for a CT scan, 16.2 weeks for an MRI scan, and 5.2 weeks for an ultrasound.

Saskatchewan and Alberta had the shortest wait for an ultrasound (2.0 weeks), and those in Quebec faced the shortest wait for an MRI (8.0 weeks) and CT scan (4.0 weeks).

Credit: Fraser Institute

Across the ten provinces, about 1,543,994 procedures had patients waiting in 2024, meaning 3.7% of Canadians are awaiting treatment. The proportion of those waiting varies, with Ontario having the lowest ( 3.08%) and PEI the highest ( 7.97%).

“While most Canadians understand that wait times are a major problem, we’ve now reached an unprecedented and unfortunate milestone for delayed access to care,” said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the report in a news release.

Fraser Institute has been studying wait times across Canada by surveying specialist physicians across 12 specialties and 10 provinces since 1993.

A detailed report is given here — Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2024 Report.