Wait Lengthens For Surgery In B.C.

The wait for surgery in British Columbia grew to a median of nine weeks between 1994 and 1995, a 22 percent increase, a Fraser Institute study indicates.

“I think it’s very significant,” said British Columbia Medical Association president Dr. Derryck Smith.

“The real problem is the federal government is withholding billions and billions of dollars in health care. There are fewer services available to people who are sick,” Smith said.

“What happens as health care funding is peeled back, as operating rooms around the province are closed, is that the waiting lists increase, and I think they’ve increased across the board, well beyond the medically accepted time for getting treatment,” he said.

Capitalizing on the delays, a company called International Medical Referral Service arranges surgery in the United States for Canadians willing to pay hefty bills in advance rather than wait for government-funded operations at home.

Lillian Bayne of the provincial Health Ministry downplayed the issue.

“By and large, there aren’t huge waiting lists and people aren’t feeling the access is a problem,” she said. “It suggests to me there’s not the kind of management problem and not the kind of market that maybe this firm thinks there may be.”