Health care wait times at 20 year high in Canada

[?Impact]

I just compared Ontario to California. The average time for minor uncomplicated conditions spent in ER in Ontario is 2.2 hours (132 minutes) from Ontario wait times website, and the California number is 161 minutes. 

[Argus]

5 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

I just compared Ontario to California. The average time for minor uncomplicated conditions spent in ER in Ontario is 2.2 hours (132 minutes) from Ontario wait times website, and the California number is 161 minutes. 

I don't know where you're getting that information from but I haven't been to an Ontario hospital in the last fifteen years where I got out in under 6 hours.

I've been to an ER twice in the last few years. I went last year due to a stomach infection. Previous to that, I went with a bad back a couple of years earlier, at about 3am and was told that my wait time before I could even see a doctor would be at least six hours, so I went home.

In fact, the recommended waiting time before getting to see a doctor at ER for uncomplicated problems is no more than 3hrs and according to the CBC cite we're often failing even at that.

[?Impact]

5 minutes ago, Argus said:

I don't know where you're getting that information from

Ontario Wait Times Search for a hospital in your area, but at the top of the report you will get the provincial average as well. Data is from September 2016. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by ?Impact

[Argus]

5 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

Ontario Wait Times Search for a hospital in your area, but at the top of the report you will get the provincial average as well. Data is from September 2016. 

What I found for uncomplicated issues was 4.1 hours.  http://www.ontariowaittimes.com/er/En/ProvincialSummary.aspx?view=0

I disbelieve even that, though, since the Ontario government is culturally dishonest and has been manipulating wait times for all its worth for years now to try to hide just how bad things are. For example, you'll notice they have two different figures for uncomplicated cases. One is 'average time' spent, and then 'total time spent 9/10 patients'. The latter is way higher than the former, so how can the former be average?

Edited November 28, 2016 by Argus

[?Impact]

2 minutes ago, Argus said:

What I found for uncomplicated issues was 4.1 hours.  http://www.ontariowaittimes.com/er/En/ProvincialSummary.aspx?view=0

I disbelieve even that, though, since the Ontario government is culturally dishonest and has been manipulating wait times for all its worth for years now to try to hide just how bad things are.

4.1 hours is not the average wait time, but the maximum time for 9 out of 10 patients

[cybercoma]

On 11/23/2016 at 1:44 PM, dre said:

theres not enough residency slots to keep up

Oh there's enough residency slots. Provinces like New Brunswick like to play a stupid little game. The province is in massive debt, so what they do is they refuse to issue new practice licenses to physicians. When doctors retire, they're supposed to relinquish their billing number, so that a new full-time physician can take their place. However, that means they can't do part-time work in their twilight years. So these doctors refuse to release their billing numbers and as they retire, there's fewer and fewer full time physicians. The province gets to pretend they're keeping costs down on healthcare, when really what's happening is that people don't have doctors and put off being seen. The province wins because it makes their debt look much less than what it should be if everyone were being treated.

[cybercoma]

On 11/23/2016 at 11:45 AM, Argus said:

The Fraser Institute has come out with a study of wait times across Canada, and the results aren't good. Yet health care wait times are not even a part of political argument in this country, because none of the parties have the courage to address the real issue, which is the failed funding formula which requires almost all major health care services to be funded by government. No one wants to examine the European model except the Conservatives, and they've been too afraid to bring it up for fear of being accused of wanting a 'two tier' health care system. Yet European countries generally have better health care outcomes and shorter wait times than Canada for the same or less money.

And if the wait times are bad now, well, just wait (no pun intended) for the aging boomers to put more strain on the already overloaded system. Meanwhile, the Liberals are busy bringing in elderly immigrants to take their place in lineups for health care services.

“This year is the longest [median] wait that we’ve ever measured between general practitioner [and] getting treatment. That’s quite remarkable,” said Bacchus Barua, the think tank’s senior economist for health-care studies. “It’s a clear indication of the trajectory we’ve been following over the last 20 or 25 years.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/wait-times-for-medical-procedures-at-20-year-high-in-canada-study/article33001028/

So The Fraser Institute contradicts the statistics from the independent third-party Canadian Institute of Healthcare Information. I wonder why that is? Well, the Fraser Institute sends out a survey to thousands of doctors and 2 doctors out of every 10 sent a response back. There's something to be said about self-selection bias here. But that's not the key here. This is the best part of their report:
 

Quote

To estimate the number of procedures for which people are waiting, the total annual number of procedures is divided by 52 (weeks per year) and then multiplied by the Fraser Institute’s estimate of the actual provincial average number of weeks waited. This means that a waiting period of one month implies that, on average, patients are waiting one-twelfth of a year for surgery. Therefore, the next person added to the list would find one-twelfth of a year’s patients ahead of him or her in the queue. The main assumption underlying this estimate is that the number of surgeries performed will neither increase nor decrease within the year in response to waiting lists.

(Waiting Your Turn, 2016: p. 12)

These numbers don't exist anywhere in real life. They're doing estimates of estimates and tacking on time to inflate the values. That's why this isn't posted in any medical journal--it wouldn't pass peer review. They might as well be plucking numbers out of thin air here and that doesn't even get into their bat-shit crazy weighting scheme.

Edited November 28, 2016 by cybercoma

[cybercoma]

To delve a little further into the Fraser Institute's report this year, Kelly Crowe at CBC writes:

Fill out this survey and have a chance to win $2,000 — that's the annual enticement from the Fraser Institute, an offer made to thousands of doctors whose names appeared on a mailing list.

But it wasn't tempting enough to get doctors to participate.

No medical oncologists in Saskatchewan, Manitoba or New Brunswick took the bait.  

Zero responses came back from radiation oncologists in New Brunswick or from cardiovascular surgeons in Manitoba. 

Not a single plastic surgeon in Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland answered the questionnaire.

Across Canada, just seven per cent of psychiatrists on the list bothered to answer the short survey asking them to estimate how long their patients are waiting for care.

The Fraser Institute is a think-tank that has long advocated for more private-sector options in the Canadian health-care system.

The reset of the article is HERE and it doesn't get any better.

[cybercoma]

Long story short, the publications from The Fraser Institute are trash. They're held up as examples by people who don't understand the methods and just want some sort of "research" to confirm their biases. This isn't data. It's a survey with an inducement of a chance to win $2000 and even then their response rate is abysmal. Even then, the doctors are asked to "estimate" (read: guess) at wait times. The Fraser Institute puts out methodologically flawed nonsense all the time. Their entire goal is to support their dogmatic agenda and people who don't know any better eat it up.

[Michael Hardner]

Wow.  Eviscerating response.  Especially for me considering how I have pushed CIHI on here for years.

[Bonam]

2 hours ago, cybercoma said:

Quote

To estimate the number of procedures for which people are waiting, the total annual number of procedures is divided by 52 (weeks per year) and then multiplied by the Fraser Institute’s estimate of the actual provincial average number of weeks waited. This means that a waiting period of one month implies that, on average, patients are waiting one-twelfth of a year for surgery. Therefore, the next person added to the list would find one-twelfth of a year’s patients ahead of him or her in the queue. The main assumption underlying this estimate is that the number of surgeries performed will neither increase nor decrease within the year in response to waiting lists.
(Waiting Your Turn, 2016: p. 12)

These numbers don't exist anywhere in real life. They're doing estimates of estimates and tacking on time to inflate the values. That's why this isn't posted in any medical journal--it wouldn't pass peer review. They might as well be plucking numbers out of thin air here and that doesn't even get into their bat-shit crazy weighting scheme.

Actually if you bother to read what that methodology (in your quoted paragraph) is, rather than over-reacting at the sight of the word "estimate", you would recognize there is nothing wrong with it. What it's saying is that if there are 120 procedures per year and your procedure is scheduled for a month out, that means there's probably about 10 procedures in line ahead of you. But if it's scheduled for two months out there's probably about 20. A real shocker, I know. It's literally nothing but employing the basic physical relation between distance and velocity. 

Basic math. Learn it and love it. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by Bonam

[Michael Hardner]

Actually the implication that the responses are not sampled randomly is the thing that caught my eye.  Does CIHI agree with these numbers or not ?

[Bonam]

9 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Actually the implication that the responses are not sampled randomly is the thing that caught my eye.  Does CIHI agree with these numbers or not ?

The self-selection bias is certainly a problem with the methodology. But the part that cc pointed out as "best part" is not. As for whether CIHI agrees, that sounds like your field of expertise ;p

[Michael Hardner]

Touché.  Ok, it's on me to look this up then.

[Argus]

4 hours ago, Bonam said:

The self-selection bias is certainly a problem with the methodology. But the part that cc pointed out as "best part" is not. As for whether CIHI agrees, that sounds like your field of expertise ;p

And from the original cite:

But Chris Simpson, a past president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), which represents the country’s doctors, said the results of the Fraser Institute’s past wait-time surveys were often roughly in keeping with the findings of the Wait Time Alliance, which he chaired until that effort quietly folded this year.

The alliance, which was supported by the CMA and associations representing medical specialists, would draw on the provinces’ own figures in a bid to report on wait times across the country

[Michael Hardner]

What is the 'wait time alliance' ?  I get emails from 'Patients Canada' too - who are all these groups.

 

CIHI wait times are listed here:

https://www.cihi.ca/en/health-system-performance/access-and-wait-times

[cannuck]

To show you just how dogmatic the current federal socialist party is about sick care, you will notice Phillpot attacking Saskatchewan's simple solution to MRI wait times.  We allow a private MRI to be done by a private, fee-for-service clinic, and in exchange, the clinic must provide one matching MRI for free to the public waiting line.

Simple, effective, cost the taxpayer nothing - but SAVES the taxpayer an amount equal to every private MRI performed.  On top of that: does what the federal idiots can not seem to do - dramatically reduces wait times for EVERYONE.   What seems to be well beyond Phillpot and Trudeau's obviously limited intellectual capacity is that all of those people who are freely choosing to buy private MRI services are going to do this anyhow.   If they can not do it at home, they will go to AB  or MN or wherever else they can find a free country to support with their $$$$.

I suppose it is in honour the JT's idol's death this week that they are now attacking everything and anything that Castro would not have approved.

Edited November 29, 2016 by cannuck

[Michael Hardner]

Sounds good but you're missing the end part - measuring effectiveness.  As I have been saying, Canadians are lacking the will or the culture to persistently monitor the system for service levels and costs and that is what is needed here.  We need to do that because, basically, others don't do it well enough on our behalf.

[cannuck]

If we spent as much time, money and effort solving the problems of sick care instead of naval gazing over metrics, politics and the rest of the BS, we might not be in such bad shape.

BTW: for reference - my niece's Mother-in-law died this week in the waiting line.  Since she is an OBG (and her husband a DDS), pretty much tells you that not even being "inside" the system can solve your family's sick care problems.

Edited November 29, 2016 by cannuck

[Michael Hardner]

We don't navel gaze over metrics.  Most Canadians don't know about CIHI.

[cybercoma]

17 hours ago, Bonam said:

Actually if you bother to read what that methodology (in your quoted paragraph) is, rather than over-reacting at the sight of the word "estimate", you would recognize there is nothing wrong with it. What it's saying is that if there are 120 procedures per year and your procedure is scheduled for a month out, that means there's probably about 10 procedures in line ahead of you. But if it's scheduled for two months out there's probably about 20. A real shocker, I know. It's literally nothing but employing the basic physical relation between distance and velocity. 

Basic math. Learn it and love it. 

That's a lot of "ifs" based on a survey of a paltry few practitioners asked to give their own "estimates" rather than real numbers. The CIHI uses actual numbers. None of their stuff is based on guesses and none of it is based on self-selection by so few doctors, most of whom are probably willing to play into the Fraser Institute's nonsense. Go read through the rest of the methodology. It's pathetic.

Edited November 29, 2016 by cybercoma

[?Impact]

5 hours ago, cannuck said:

 On top of that: does what the federal idiots can not seem to do - dramatically reduces wait times for EVERYONE.

What part of health care delivery being a provincial responsibility do you not get? I suppose you didn't see that Saskatchewan has had a significant problem in the last few years with hip & knee replacements, slowly increasing wait times from some of the best in the nation to the absolute worst. 

[bush_cheney2004]

Update:   Canadians still wait far longer for health care.   Which means nothing has changed....

 

Quote

Canadians continue to report longer wait times for doctors, specialists and emergency department visits than their peers in other countries

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/wait-times-cihi-commonwealth-1.3984920

 

[CITIZEN_2015]

A colleague of mind whose wife is in Health care was saying that the flow of refugees putting real strain on our already sick health care system. Refugees coming here with all kinds of diseases (I am referring to refugees not immigrants who are vigorously screened for health and diseases) and then they need immediate care. They have never been tax payers never contributed to Canadian society in any way but they jump out of the boat and suddenly demand equal health care and then seniors citizens who are born here and have contributed to the tax system for many decades are left in blue or have to wait for long line up and likely die or get worse before it is their turn. What kind of justice system is this? And before someone accuse me of being fascist or anti-immigrant or white supremacist I let know that I am an immigrant myself but work my way up through university and been a tax payer over 20 years so I expect SAME from everyone else who chooses Canada to as the homeland to live. 

Edited February 18, 2017 by CITIZEN_2015

[?Impact]

13 minutes ago, CITIZEN_2015 said:

they jump out of the boat and suddenly demand equal health care and then seniors citizens who are born here and have contributed to the tax system for many decades are left in blue or have to wait for long line up and likely die or get worse before it is their turn

Are you suggesting a health care system that prioritizes based on tax contribution instead of need like our current one?