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Alberta sees longer surgical wait times in 2022 compared to pre-pandemic: CIHI

Story by Anna Junker • Yesterday 


An Alberta Health Services building.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Fewer surgeries are being performed within the recommended time frame in Alberta compared to before the pandemic, according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information.

New data published by the non-profit organization that tracks health-care systems shows that in Alberta, about 78,000 fewer surgeries were performed since March 2020 compared to pre-pandemic rates.

Between April and September 2022, only 27 per cent of knee replacement patients had surgery within the recommended six-month period, compared to 62 per cent in 2019. However, the institute notes that Alberta was among four provinces that performed more joint replacements over the five-month period, compared to the same time frame in 2019.

It’s a similar story for hip replacement patients, where 38 per cent had surgery within the recommended six-month period, compared to 64 per cent in 2019.

However, a higher proportion of patients were receiving cataract surgery within the recommended timeframe, 65 per cent compared to 44 per cent in 2019.

CIHI found it is also taking longer for cancer patients to get surgery compared to before the pandemic in Alberta. For example, in the case of lung cancer patients, it took on average 21 days for a patient to have surgery in 2019, whereas, in 2022, it took an average of 34 days.

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Prostate cancer surgeries have also seen an increase in wait times, with an average wait of 76 days in 2022, compared to 45 in 2019. Some patients are seeing a wait time of as many as 168 days.

Patients scheduled for breast cancer surgery had an average wait of 21 days, compared to 17 in 2019.

In response to the data, Scott Johnston, press secretaray to Health Minister Jason Copping, said in a statement that Alberta is ramping up efforts to address surgical wait times.

“As of March 2023, Alberta Health Services is completing surgeries at an average of 109 per cent of pre-pandemic surgical volumes, and the total surgical wait list for adults sits at 68,052,” he said. “For comparison, in February 2020, just before the pandemic, our total waitlist was virtually the same at 68,000.”

Johnston also said data for key benchmark surgeries is trending in the right direction and as of January, AHS was reporting improvements in knee replacement surgeries being completed within the recommended time frame at 39 per cent, and hip replacement surgeries at 49 per cent.

But the rates still remain below pre-pandemic levels.

As for cancer surgeries, he said they are nearly at 112 per cent of pre-pandemic volumes. As of March 6 of the 2022-23 fiscal year, AHS has completed approximately 20,930 cancer surgeries, compared to approximately 18,760 by the same times in the 2018-19 fiscal year. About 63 per cent of surgeries are being completed within the clinically recommended wait times.

Johnston added the provincial health authority has completed about 272,600 surgeries in the 2022-23 fiscal year.

ajunker@postmedia.com