As of this year, 694,161 Canadians are on a waiting list for medical procedures. Assuming one person per procedure, that means 2.08 percent of the population is queued up for “free” care, according to the Fraser Institute’s annual survey on wait times.
These Canadians pay for their health care in both taxes and the hard currency of pain, anguish, and lost wages…
Worse, an incredible 16 percent of the population — five million people — is waiting to get a primary care doctor.
Once they get one, they have to wait yet again. On average, Canadians waited 16.1 weeks from the time their general practitioner referred them to a specialist until they actually received treatment in 2009, according to the Fraser Institute. That’s 73 percent longer than the wait in 1993, when the Institute first started quantifying the problem.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member