[國際新聞] Waiting times cost B.C. patients $155.5 necessary, patients, waiting, private, health

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Waiting times cost B.C. patients $155.5 million last year: Fraser Institute study

Author says more private sector participation in health care would help solve problem


Waiting for medically necessary surgeries cost British Columbian patients about $155.5 million in lost time last year, a Fraser Institute economist claims in a new study.
It estimates that the total cost to Canadian patients of waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist was $1.1 billion in 2013, up from $982 million in 2012. Quebec had the highest cost at $267.7 million.
Author Nadeem Esmail said the report explores a consequence of waiting for care that Canadians don’t often consider.
“We know that waiting for health care causes pain and discomfort. We know that it places people at risk of disability and death. We know that it may mean deterioration and more complex surgeries at the end. We know that it may lead to addiction to painkillers and other things. What we don’t often realize is that Canadians are losing valuable time, whether it’s actually lost income from working or whether it’s time with friends and family,” he said.
He added that his calculations only take into account the time lost to waiting during the work week. If evenings and weekends are taken into account, according to Esmail’s estimates, the cost of waiting would rise to $3.4 billion across the country.
Esmail said that in order to address the problem of long waiting times, he’d like to see Canada allow more private sector participation in the provision of health care, including the development of a parallel private system.
“We have to realize that waiting for health care is not a necessary evil, it’s not a prerequisite to universality,” he said.
Overall, British Columbians waited a median 10.4 weeks for treatment after their first appointment with a specialist last year, compared to 9.6 weeks across Canada, according to the study.
Esmail’s calculations depend upon a 2005 Statistics Canada report stating that 11 per cent of patients who visited a specialist said they were negatively affected in some way by the wait for non-emergency surgery, with impacts ranging from increased stress to trouble completing day-to-day tasks. To arrive at his final cost estimates, Esmail used that figure, which he calls a “cost of waiting,” in calculations that also took into account the number of patients waiting for treatment in each specialty, average waiting times and the average weekly wage.
Anis Aslam, a health economist at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, described Esmail’s report as “very simplistic” and said the author makes too many assumptions.
“Even so, while there is always a cost to society of having waiting times as this report very crudely estimates, the benefit of eliminating such wait times has to be compared to the costs that would need to be incurred to have zero wait times,” Aslam wrote in an email.
“Imagine going to a bank or the passport office or to the checkout counter at your grocery store and not having to line up; many more tellers would have to be hired and they would have to be ‘waiting’ for you so that you did not have to wait.”
But he added that he’d like to see the topic studied further.
“When the proper methodology is applied to the problem, an ‘optimal’ wait time can be calculated and then compared with actual wait times, this would allow for the estimation of the true burden of wait times.”

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Waiting for medically necessary surgeries cost British Columbian patients about $155.5 million in lost time last year, a Fraser Institute economist claims in a new study. It estimates that the total cost to Canadian patients of waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist was $1.1 billion in 2013, up from $982 million in 2012. Quebec had the highest cost at $267.7 million.