CANADA'S HEALTH CARE WAIT TIMES LONGEST EVER RECORDED

Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada, 2016 finds that Canadian patients waited longer than ever this year for medical treatment. The median wait time in Canada in 2016 was 20 weeks—the longest ever recorded—and more than double the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited in 1993, when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times for medically necessary elective treatments. Among the provinces, Ontario recorded the shortest wait time at 15.6 weeks—up from 14.2 weeks in 2015. New Brunswick recorded the longest wait time (38.8 weeks). It’s estimated that Canadians are currently waiting for nearly one million medically necessary procedures.