Numbers waiting over three months for surgery spike since March budget

Health Minister Dustin Duncan isn’t overly concerned with surgical wait times in the province, even as numbers creep up as the year ticks on.

If more people were waiting more than six months, though, that would have him worried, and perhaps “re-evaluating where we’re at in terms of the surgical initiative.”

On Monday in the house, Duncan responded to Opposition Leader Cam Broten’s questions about surgical wait times, after Broten pointed out that the number of people waiting more than three months for surgery has increased from 1,682 to 2,912 since the budget in March.

To that, Duncan lobbed back figures from 14 years ago, when the NDP was in power and wait times were some of the highest in the country.

Speaking with reporters following question period, Duncan said “99 per cent of people will get a surgery in six months” — a figure he’s happy to “stack up against every other province in this country.”

“We’re going to keep a close eye on that, but the progress we have made in this province and where we continue to be even today — even with those numbers increasing on a very small basis compared with the overall picture — I think we’re still in a very good position,” he said.

But “this is a big deal,” Broten said.

He said while “progress had been made, and that’s a good thing,” ever since the budget was released the province has seen “a clear pattern.”

“This is a concerning problem, because we see the issue of surgical wait times going in the wrong direction,” he said.