Government fell short on surgical waits: NDP

REGINA The NDP is criticizing the Saskatchewan Party government for steadily rising surgery wait times.

Surgery wait times have been on the rise since 2015, according to Ministry of Health data.

Across the province, 73 per cent of patients had a surgery performed within three months, but the number of people waiting longer than that has increased by more than 7,000 since April 2015.

Those times are out of line with a provincial goal announced in 2009. The Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative ended in 2014 and had the target of no patient waiting more than three months for surgery.

It had success: there were 11,528 fewer patients waiting more than three months for surgery than at the beginning of the Surgical Initiative in March 2010, but since wrapping up, the numbers have crept up again.

“What I really see here is a situation where the government threw money at it for a period of time, had less money around, but didn’t make the systemic — or in their language, ‘transformational’ — changes required to actually keep the wait times down,” said NDP Leader Ryan Meili. “Really what we should be seeing is innovations in the health care system to get people access to those services, and instead we’re seeing those wait times climb.”

Rural and Remote Health Minister Greg Ottenbreit admitted there has been a “slight uptick” recently.

“We do have a growing population and in some ways an aging population, which drives up utilization, so I think we’re seeing some of these new pressures,” he said, noting there was a 2.9-per-cent increase to health funding in the provincial budget this year.

Ottenbreit spoke to his own experiences in the health care system in addressing reporters about the issue on Monday. In 2017, he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. He said that from his initial concerns over his health to getting a diagnosis, he waited about three months. He said he waited about two more months before getting into treatment. While he said overall he was happy with the care he received, Ottenbreit added “all and all, it’s not something you want to wait for.”

Really what we should be seeing is innovations in the health care system to get people access to those services.

According to the most recent provincial data available, from October 2017 to December 2017, 22,333 surgeries were performed in Saskatchewan. The average wait time for those surgeries was 26 days, but 40 per cent of the 22,806 people waiting for a surgery had already waited more than three months.

The province continues to point to its overall record in government. Since the Saskatchewan Party came to power in 2007, the number of people waiting more than three months for a surgery is down 41 per cent, or 6,231 patients. The number of people waiting more than six months is down 57 per cent and the number of people waiting more than 18 months is down 87 per cent, from 2,666 patients to 343.