Alberta heart, cancer patients waiting too long for critical surgery, health experts warn
CBC
More Albertans are waiting longer than clinically recommended for critical cardiac and cancer surgeries, sparking concern among health experts and calls for urgent action.
While a record number of surgeries is being performed in the province, the number of people on Alberta's waitlist is longer than it was two years ago.
And the latest provincial data (from October 2025) shows less than two-thirds (61 per cent) of patients had their surgeries completed within the recommended time period.
The trends are coming to light as the province pledges to improve surgical waits and as it forges ahead with a push to use chartered surgical facilities for less complex procedures.
“It scares me a little,” said Stacey Litvinchuk, who, as a former senior program officer for surgery operations and lead of the Alberta Surgical Initiative for Alberta Health Services, watches the numbers closely.
Litvinchuk is particularly worried about heart and cancer patients.
"We're seeing wait times for cancer surgeries and cardiac surgeries get worse. They're increasing," said Litvinchuk, who now works as a health-care consultant.
The latest numbers show just 11 per cent of cardiac bypass (coronary artery bypass graft) surgeries performed in October 2025 were done within the recommended time frame.
During the same month in 2019, it was 60 per cent.
“It’s a critical surgery," said Litvinchuk. "The wait time windows are two weeks or less.”
Instead, some people are waiting months for the surgery, she said.
“They could die of their disease … That’s very scary.”
Litvinchuk is equally concerned about cancer surgery trends.
Waits for the top five cancer surgeries (bladder, breast, colorectal, lung and prostate) are also deteriorating.
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