Northern Health has been successful in reducing the number of people who have to wait an inordinately long time for surgery, but wait lists still remain for many procedures.
"We've spent a lot of time in the last one to two years focusing on the long waiters on the wait list and really making sure that we get people off of it so they don't wait three or four years," Northern Health northern interior chief operating officer Michael McMillan said.
"Our goal is to not have anybody wait longer than a year and we've made significant improvement this year in getting those long waiters off the wait list."
Many of the longest wait times are for orthopedic procedures, like joint replacements and B.C. isn't alone in finding it difficult to provide those types of procedures in a timely manner.
According to a study released Monday by the Fraser Institute on the cost of wait times to private individuals, the average wait time for orthopedic surgery in B.C. is 22.5 weeks, about a week longer than the national average. When multiplied by the average provincial wage of $881.94, the right-leaning think tank postulated that cost of waiting for that type of surgery alone in the province is $39.5 million based on the wait list of 18,000 patients.
The Fraser Institute calculated the wait times for all types of surgery are costing B.C. $155 million, the third highest figure in the country behind only Quebec and Ontario. Nationally the institute figures wait lists cost Canadians $1.1 billion.
"The rationing of health care in Canada through queues for medically necessary health services imposes direct costs on those waiting for care," report author Nadeem Esmail wrote.
"The ability of individuals who are waiting to enjoy leisure time and earn an income to support their families is diminished by physical and psychological pain and suffering."
McMillan was unable to provide specific wait time figures for UHNBC, but said the situation has improved in recent years due to successful recruitment of surgeons and expanded surgical space. He said the number of people on the wait lists may be increasing locally, but that's largely due to the fact that there are more surgeons doing procedures.
"We can always have better access, there's definitely significant need in our community," he said.
"I think we've done some good things in investment for surgical services, but there's more than can be done."
In order to provide sufficient surgical care, McMillan said the health authority needs to have enough surgeons, nurses and anesthetists available to perform the procedures. At times he said there have been challenges in staffing all of those areas, but the attention right now is on the nursing side.
"Right now we're focused on making sure we have the nurses available," he said, noting the health authority has invested in training and is looking at alternative ways to provide the required education.
"Dealing with something like surgical wait lists is a long process and it requires a lot of people to pay significant attention to it over a long period of time," he said.
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