Hospitals across Canada are performing surgeries at close to pre-pandemic levels, but many patients continue to face longer-than-recommended wait times due to the backlog created by COVID-19, a new report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information says.
The report, published on Thursday, looked at knee and hip replacements, cataract surgeries and cancer surgeries performed in 2019 versus those performed in 2022."Things like knee and hip replacements and cataracts are what we call scheduled surgeries and they were particularly affected during the pandemic because they're not life-threatening," said Tracy Johnson, director of health system analytics at CIHI.
"The most recent data shows that while the monthly number of scheduled surgeries is nearing pre-pandemic levels, this is insufficient to clear the backlog and improve wait times," the CIHI report said. Cancer surgery wait times haven't been as dramatically affected because the most urgent cases were prioritized during COVID-19 shutdowns, said Johnson.
Andrea Seale, CEO of the Canadian Cancer Society, said it's critical for the health-care system to reduce those wait times. More patients in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Ontario are waiting longer for cataract surgery, while a higher proportion of patients in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and P.E.I. are getting their cataract procedures within the recommended 112 days.
Forbes agreed with the report's findings that hospitals have to do even more surgeries than they did before the pandemic to catch up, noting that an aging population increases the demand even more.
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