4,516 British Columbians died waiting for surgeries, diagnostics between 2023 and 2024: report

Posted January 16, 2025 2:51 pm.
Last Updated January 16, 2025 2:56 pm.
A new report shows nearly 15,000 Canadians died between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024 waiting for surgery or a diagnosis — nearly a third of them died in B.C.
The report by SecondStreet shows 988 British Columbians died while waiting for surgery, and 3,528 died while waiting for diagnostic tests in that time period.
A Victoria family doctor, Dr. Jennifer Lush, says the wait times are unacceptable. She says the death toll is jarring and saddening, but not surprising.
“If I send somebody for a semi-urgent CT scan — so not a routine CT scan, say they’re coughing up blood, and I’m worried they have lung cancer, and I send a request for a semi-urgent CT scan that is going to be done in over 400 days for semi-urgent, so over a year wait to get a CT scan that might possibly rule out or rule in cancer, and that’s just not acceptable.”
Lush says the problem has gotten significantly worse in recent years.
When she first started practicing, she says semi-urgent scans would have absolutely been done within a month. Now, patients may have to wait more than a year to get answers about their condition.
Lush and SecondStreet both say a major part of the issue is transparency. Lush wants governments to publicly report on wait times and death rates, and she says this needs to be an urgent and nonpartisan effort.
“We need the government to be very transparent with the data of ‘What are the wait times for surgery?’ ‘What are the wait times for imaging?’ ‘Who are the people?’ ‘What are the stats of people dying on wait lists?’ ‘What are we doing to make this better?’ And we need to make it better urgently.”
She says improved access to family physicians is the first step to improving access to specialist care, imaging, surgeries, and other services for which British Columbians are waiting.
“I’m really ‘quarterbacking’ and advocating for my patient to try to access care and in as timely a fashion as we can. People who don’t have a family doctor don’t have that advocate in their corner.”
In a statement to 1130 NewsRadio, B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne says her ministry is “making strides” in reducing wait times.
“Our government is working hard to recruit skilled staff, increase operating room hours and add the diagnostic imaging equipment needed to provide timely access to surgical and diagnostic services throughout B.C.,” said Osborne.
The ministry says it delivered more surgeries than ever before in the same period examined by the report. It added that it has implemented nine net-new CT units and 18 net-new MRI units in the province.
“This has led to the delivery of more diagnostic exams. The number of MRI exams has gone up 83 per cent compared to 2016/17. The number of CT exams has gone up 43 per cent compared to 2016/17.”
SecondStreet’s report was not able to gather data from Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and most of Manitoba, and only surgery data from Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.
“If one extrapolates the data provided across provinces and health regions that did not provide data, an estimated 28,077 patients died last year on health care waiting lists,” the report said.