Health Canada says 26 weeks is too long to wait for hip or knee replacements, but the number of patients on Vancouver Island waiting longer is growing.
Island Health’s Suzanne Germaine says their latest numbers show they’re not meeting the 26 week target for those procedures as well as they were in 2012.
Germain says there seems to be two main factors: increased demand and a lack of anesthesiologists. As well as hiring more specialists they’re considering scheduling more surgeries.
For all elective surgeries on the Island around 41 per cent of patients are waiting longer than they should.
The situation is also worse for Vancouver Coastal Health than it was in 2012. About 26 per cent of elective surgery patients are waiting longer than the federal guidelines.
The reports from Island Health are available here.
You can see the latest report from VCH here.
The Ministry of Health tracks detailed wait times by procedure, hospital and surgeon here.
