Simone Smith
Somewhere out there someone is waiting for surgery to help alleviate major pain and discomfort even worse still, a potentially curable disease or illness that, due to waiting too long is spreading and becoming chronic or untreatable.
For some reason, in what is said to be the greatest country on this planet, preliminary data suggest that an estimated 1.2 million patients waited for medically necessary treatment last year, and each lost an estimated $2,254 (on average) due to lost wages and reduced productivity during working hours.
Waiting for treatment in Canada can have serious consequences. Consequences include:
- Poorer medical outcomes
- Increased or prolonged pain
- Negative impacts on mental health
- Physical pain and psychological distress
- Permanent disability
- Death
The $2.8 billion in lost wages is likely a conservative estimate because it doesn’t account for the additional 10.5-week wait to see a specialist after receiving a referral from a general practitioner. Taken together (10.5 weeks and 12.1 weeks), the total median wait time in Canada for medical treatment was 22.6 weeks in 2020 – the longest in the survey’s 30-year history.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected many things, but healthcare, understandably, has been one of the most impacted.
