As the Ontario government plans to issue new licences for surgical and diagnostic centres to perform orthopedic surgeries in the province in an attempt to reduce wait times, experts say it’s important to have perspective about where the problems are.
One doctor says there is a “huge disconnect” between what’s happening in the province and the “catastrophization” about what people think is happening.
Dr. David Urbach, head of the department of surgery at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, says patients receiving orthopedic surgery are getting treated within the recommended wait times over 80 per cent of the time.
Urbach acknowledged that wait times are typically better within Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area and tend to get worse the further outside of the city patients live. However, the overall healthcare system in Ontario is in ”remarkably good shape," he said.
“If you look at some of the circumstances in Ontario, pretty close to all people are getting joint replacement within the time that the province says they should,” Urbach said in an interview with CTV News Toronto. “That time is up to six months and the reason those timelines were developed is because people think they’re reasonable for those conditions... 80 per cent or more are getting joint replacement within six months, which is the recommendation.”
He said problems arise because hospitals report on crisis situations that are sometimes faced and not the “run-of-the-mill” successful cases of a patient who was treated within the desired timeline. Urbach refers to those crises as “variations,” which skew the view of how long Ontarians can expect to wait for surgeries.
“There are people who have been waiting 18 months and still haven’t had surgery,” Urbach explained. “This is the problem that we frame as a variation.... There’s no, quote, ‘wait list’ for the province. It’s not like every single patient waiting for a scan or surgery is in the same queue. They’re in all sorts of different queues. It’s very fragmented. It’s not coordinated. There is a lot of interest right now, and the government is trying to fix this actively.”
A report released in June by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) did show that Canadians are still facing longer wait times for many surgeries and procedures than they did prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This despite the fact that in some cases, the volume of surgeries and procedures being conducted now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, another study released by think tank SecondStreet.org in September showed that approximately 3.7 million Canadians are waiting for surgery, diagnostic scans, or specialist appointments.
“If you’re not on a waitlist yourself, you probably know someone who is on a waitlist,” Dom Lucyk, director of communications with SecondStreet, told CTV News at the time.
Urbach said major changes are coming to the healthcare system in Ontario in 2026, including plans to coordinate electronic referral processes so that patients can be placed in the same queue. In the meantime, those so-called variations where some people are facing long waits for surgeries and procedures will continue to persist.
“You hear about someone in B.C. who’s waited two years and they still don’t have a time. Those are the people you hear about. But those people exist because that’s a consequence of this huge variation and the lack of coordination, and some people end up attached to a surgeon who just has an enormous wait list... but that doesn’t mean everyone’s experience is like that.”
According to Urbach, Ontario’s data shows that provincial wait times are not an overwhelming problem considering all of the attention that’s being paid to them. He said that still doesn’t mean everything is “perfect,” but that it is a situation that can be improved.
“There are major problems with wait times, but they are often in areas that you don’t even hear very much about,” he added. “Right now, there is a huge crisis in paediatric surgery, gynecology—huge problems accessing routine gynecology visits and surgical procedures for non-cancer related gynecology.”
“It’s not for things like cancer in general. We do a very good job with cancer... the wait times are actually excellent for cancer in Ontario. They’re really good for hip and knee replacement. They’re very good for cardiac, but there are things that are hugely problematic.”
According to Ontario Health data, these are the average wait times in the province for various surgical procedures once the decision to proceed with surgery is made. Priority 1 patients are not included in the data because those are patients with emergency conditions who are seen immediately.
Arterial Bypass - all
- Overall Wait: 80 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 48 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 44 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 19 Days
Cataract
- Overall Wait: 82 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 101 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 95 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 57 Days
Gallbladder
- Overall Wait: 94 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 61 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 42 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 27 Days
Hip Replacement
- Overall Wait: 78 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 114 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 86 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 75 Days
Hysterectomy
- Overall Wait: 73 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 130 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 124 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 88 Days
Kidney Stone Removal
- Overall Wait: 95 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 40 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 33 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 24 Days
Knee Replacement
- Overall Wait: 79 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 117 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 86 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 73 Days
Thyroid
- Overall Wait: 81 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 121 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 120 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 32 Days
Tumour removal (benign)
- Overall Wait: 73 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 53 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 42 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 14 Days
Cardiac (paediatric)
- Overall Wait: 92 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 135 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 39 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 3 Days
General (paediatric)
- Overall Wait: 76 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 121 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 67 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 31 Days
Otolaryngic (paediatric)
- Overall Wait: 71 per cent of patients treated within target time
- Priority 4 Patients: 106 Days
- Priority 3 Patients: 92 Days
- Priority 2 Patients: 61 Days
The data in this story has been corrected.
