NDP Leader Carla Beck and Health Critic Matt Love respond to surgical wait times. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

By Nicole Garn, CKOM News Staff

‘We all know someone:’ Sask. knee and hip replacement wait times worst in Canada

Jul 6, 2023 | 3:22 PM

It’s likely that you know someone waiting for a surgery in Saskatchewan.

They might have to keep waiting, as the province has the worst surgical wait times in the country.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s (CIHI) latest report from 2022, the national average wait time for knee replacements is 198 days. The average in Saskatchewan is more than twice that, at 466 days. The next-longest waits for knee replacements were in Manitoba, where the average wait is 336 days.

NDP health critic Matt Love said those numbers are unacceptable.

“We’re not even just in last place; we’re in a category all on our own, way at the bottom,” he said.

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“These aren’t just numbers. These are Saskatchewan people.”

The report showed that Saskatchewan also has the worst wait times for hip replacements.

The average wait time in Saskatchewan for hip replacements is 309 days, which is nearly twice the national average of 164 days.

Saskatchewan Health Authority data from the first three months of this year show similar results.

According to the health authority, wait times for knee replacements have gotten worse since the CIHI report, and the provincial average is 467 days. Those in Regina are waiting even longer, with an average of 580 days.

The data for hip replacement wait times show some improvement, with the provincial average sitting at 276 days. Again, those in Regina are waiting longer, with an average 463 days.

NDP Leader Carla Beck said the Saskatchewan Party cannot use the pandemic as an excuse, and needs to be held accountable.

“When you look at the CIHI data before Scott Moe came into power, we were below the national average,” Beck said.

“But a year after Scott Moe took power, we had the worst hospital waits in Canada, and it’s been that way every year since.”

Beck said some patients in Regina and Saskatoon have been waiting nearly three years for essential medical procedures.

“We all know someone who’s been waiting in pain for too long, for a procedure that should have been delivered years ago,” she said.

Health-care workers want to be part of the discussion to find solutions, Beck noted.

“They’re begging to be at the table. We need to take them up on it,” she said.

Beck said in order to reduce wait times, the health-care system needs to expand its capacity in terms of operating rooms and staffing, which includes improving worker retention.

“If we are losing health-care workers faster than the rate that they are coming in, this continues to burn health-care workers out and continues to see people wait longer and longer for surgery,” said Beck.

In a statement from the Ministry of Health, the government said surgical wait lists have reduced by nearly 10 per cent since their peak in November of 2021.

The province also recorded over 90,000 surgical procedures in between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023, the highest number ever recorded in Saskatchewan in one year. That total, the ministry said, included 1,600 more hip and knee replacement surgeries in comparison to pre-COVID numbers.

The ministry said it aims to reach pre-COVID wait-list numbers of less than 25,000 by the end of March next year.