Thousands of Canadians have died while on waitlists for healthcare services between 2023 and 2024, according to a troubling new report.
SecondStreet.org just released government data showing an additional 15,474 patients in Canada died between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024 before receiving various surgeries or diagnostic scans.
The think tank, which researches how government policies affect everyday Canadians, came to these findings by filing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests across Canada.
“Canadians pay really high taxes and yet our healthcare system is failing when compared to better-performing universal systems in Europe,” said Harrison Fleming, legislative and policy director at SecondStreet.org, in a statement on Wednesday.
“Thousands of Canadians across the country find themselves on waitlists — in some cases for several years — with too many tragically dying before ever getting treated, or even diagnosed.”
The organization says the 15,474 number is likely incomplete because some provincial governments provide only partial data or do not track these deaths.
When the data was extrapolated across jurisdictions that didn’t provide data, SecondStreet.org found that the number nearly doubled to around 28,077. These figures cover everything from cancer treatment and heart operations to cataract surgery and MRI scans.
The think tank found cases where patients died after waiting anywhere from less than a week for treatment to more than 14 years.
Since April 2018, SecondStreet.org has identified a staggering 74,677 cases where Canadians died while on a healthcare waitlist.
“When a restaurant fails a health inspection, the government shares the news publicly and sometimes notices are posted in the establishment’s windows for everyone to see,” said Colin Craig, SecondStreet.org president, in a statement.
“But when nearly 75,000 Canadians have died before getting the care they needed, governments don’t proactively disclose anything. Maybe it’s time for governments to hold themselves to the same standard they hold everyone else.”
Craig says the research is inspired by stories like 18-year-old Ontario patient Laura Hillier’s. She died on a waiting list for cancer treatment in 2016. More recently, a Winnipeg man died following an hours-long wait in the ER.
The issue is so pervasive that some Canadians have taken their access to healthcare into their own hands.
B.C. resident Tara Matthews, who’s dealing with Tarlov Cyst Disease, was diagnosed in April but says the Canadian and B.C. healthcare systems have failed her.
The option she got in Canada was to wait two years for a phone call to discuss her condition. The alternative she’s choosing is to fly to Turkey, where she found a doctor willing to perform the surgery — but it’s not cheap.
“Governments need to do a better job tracking tragic stories like [Hillier’s], notifying the public about waiting list deaths and most importantly, initiating reform to save lives,” said Craig.
The think tank’s report shows the FOIs and the breakdown of deaths per province.
Taking into account data from all of the health authorities in British Columbia between 2023 and 2024, there were 988 patient deaths while waiting for surgery and 3,528 deaths while waiting for diagnostics, totalling 4,516 deaths.
In Ontario, 1,935 patients died while on the waitlist for surgeries, while 7,947 died while waiting for diagnostics. Altogether, that’s 9,882 deaths.
SecondStreet.org wasn’t able to get data from Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, and most of Manitoba. Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia only provided data on patients who died while waiting for surgeries, not diagnostic scans.
A recent report from C.D. Howe found Canada’s healthcare system has fallen behind its international peers. The not-for-profit think tank found while the country’s quality of care is relatively high, Canadians’ access to that care is an issue.
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