A national report shows Saskatchewan patients are benefitting from improved access to surgery, with surgical wait times among the shortest in the country.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report, Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada, 2015, was released this morning.
In Saskatchewan, 90 per cent of all patients had an offer of surgery within three months of booking between December 2014 and February 2015.
“Since the launch of the four-year Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative in April 2010, we have made tremendous improvement in patients’ access to surgery,” Health Minister Dustin Duncan said. “Close to 10,000 more surgeries were performed last year, compared to five years ago, and the number of patients waiting more than three months for surgery has dropped by 87 per cent over the past five years.”
The CIHI report indicates Saskatchewan is doing well in comparison to other provinces in access to bypass surgery, hip replacement surgery, knee replacement surgery and cataract surgery (percentage of patients receiving surgery within the benchmark timeframe):
Best wait times for bypass surgery
Second best wait times in performing hip replacement surgery
Second best wait times in performing knee replacement surgery
Third best wait times in performing cataract surgery
In cancer surgery, Saskatchewan is also doing well in comparison to other provinces in access to bladder, breast, colorectal and lung surgery (number of days within which 90 per cent of patients received surgery):
Best wait times for bladder cancer surgery
Best wait times for lung cancer surgery
Third best wait times for breast cancer surgery
Third best wait times for colorectal cancer surgery
The full CIHI report is available at www.cihi.ca.
