Sask. has second-highest rate of deaths among people waiting for surgery: report
CTV
A new report has found an increasing number of Canadians are dying while waiting for surgery and diagnostic scans.
A new report has found an increasing number of Canadians are dying while waiting for surgery and diagnostic scans.
Using information compiled through access to information requests, think-tank SecondStreet.org found the number of Canadians who died while waiting for surgery or diagnostic scans between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023 reached a five-year high, with 17,032 patients dying across the country.
Saskatchewan ranked second highest per capita among all provinces for residents who died while on a surgical wait list, at 336.5 people per one million population.
"More and more people are spending their final months in pain, waiting for surgery that never arrives," Saskatchewan NDP health critic Matt Love said Thursday.
During the timespan used by SecondStreet, 402 people from Saskatchewan died while on a waiting list.
"402 people died who were waiting for surgery in Saskatchewan," Love said. "That doesn't encapsulate the failure system-wide that we're learning more and more about each and every day."
The deaths in Saskatchewan represent a 66 per cent increase since 2018. In 2021-22, 343 people in Saskatchewan died while on a surgical waiting list. In 2020-21, 278 people died while waiting for surgery.
