Urban Health Regions won’t meet elective surgery goals
The Regina-Qu'Appelle Health Region will reach its first surgical wait list goal but it will happen a year later than first hoped.
New figures released Thursday show the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region is only finishing 67 per cent of elective surgeries within the government-imposed three-month target. It fares slightly better when the window is expanded to six months, with 80 per cent being completed in that time.
“We are going to achieve our goal by March of 2015,” explained the region's Bill Carney. “The number of people on the wait lists have declined by 38 per cent so we are meeting the target.”
The most recent numbers date back to December of 2013 when 5,481 people remained on the wait list for elective surgeries past the three-month mark. The previous December there were 8,821 people still on that list.