Nearly Half of Canadians Avoiding Hospitals Because of Wait Times

Around 47 percent of Canadians choose to stay home rather than seek medical treatment with a doctor or hospital because of long wait times, says a new survey.

"For decades, the Canadian government and provincial governments have taken the general approach that the system isn't working, so let's throw more and more money at it," Dominic Lucyk, communications director with think tank SecondStreet.org which published the study, told The Epoch Times.

"And you look at wait-list numbers, you look at the numbers of deaths on wait lists, those continue to go up year over year."

Lucyk said the number of people opting not to seek the care they need because they don't want to face long wait times is concerning.

"You have something that you may think at first is not as serious, but it could cost you your life," he said.

The survey of 1,520 adults, conducted by Leger between Oct. 25 and Oct. 27, also found that 73 percent were in favour of allowing patients to have a choice to stay on a waiting list for local care or to be reimbursed by the province for seeking care outside their home province or country.

Of those surveyed, 9 percent with incomes under $60,000 reported having paid for health care outside of their province. That number rose to 12 percent for those earning between $60,000 and $100,000, and 11 percent for those with incomes higher than $100,000.

Under existing laws, patients can receive private health care by going to another province.

"People are doing this regardless," Lucyk said. "When your life is on the line, you're going to make it work some way or another."

He said governments could make it easier for Canadians to travel for health care and develop policies that would reimburse patients who chose to access care outside their province.

The SecondStreet policy brief looked at the EU model as the most practical one to follow because the EU has universal health care, but also allows patients to pay and be reimbursed, Lucyk said.

"What they do in the European Union is, if you travel for care, your home government will reimburse you for up to what it would cost to get that procedure done locally."

He said the EU, Australia, and New Zealand all have universal health-care systems but also allow patients to pay for private care.

"There's no such thing as a perfect system anywhere, but they've managed to do it much better than we have in Canada."

The policy brief noted there are 5.2 million Canadians on a waiting list for health-care services.

SecondStreet's annual "Died on a Waiting List" report shows that since 2018, nearly 60,000 Canadians have died while waiting for health care.

"While there is no way of knowing how many Canadians have died because they chose not to seek health care due to the challenges of accessing government-provided treatment, the fact it is happening at all is unconscionable," the brief says.