The shortest total wait among specialties was for cancer patients being treated with chemotherapy. Obviously patients who are unable to see a specialist are effectively screened from receiving treatment. This form of health care rationing is increasingly occurring in Canada. Long waits for treatment are frequently viewed as a failure of the Canadian health-care system. But it is an area where there is far more rhetoric than reality.
Powerful anecdotes form the basis of media reports on the issue.
Perhaps Canadians' perceptions of the unduly long waits for surgery are influenced by the rhetoric from south of the border. The wait for scheduled coronary-artery bypass surgery reported by the Fraser Institute was remarkably distorted. Despite concerns expressed in newspaper headlines about waiting times and access to necessary treatment, waiting-time data are not generally collected in Canada. One reason is the complexity of what on the surface seems to be a fairly straightforward issue. Canada could do a better job of managing patients waiting for surgery.