Chronic care waits in Canada

In no surprise to any Canadian who's needed to see a specialist in the last decade or so, Canadian waiting times are significantly longer than average:

Canadians with chronic illnesses wait longer to see medical specialists than counterparts in seven other developed countries, a new international survey suggests.

Only 40 per cent of Canadians with chronic illnesses who took part in the survey reported waiting less than four weeks to see a specialist. And 42 per cent said they had to wait more than two months - substantially longer than counterparts in the seven other countries.

The findings are part of the 2008 survey of the health-care experiences of the chronically ill compiled by the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on improving health-care delivery. The survey was published Thursday in the journal Health Affairs.

Canadians with chronic illnesses also reported higher rates of problems accessing same-day care.

Only 26 per cent said they could get a same-day appointment to see a doctor, putting Canada at the bottom of the heap with Americans when it came to same-day access to care. In contrast, 60 per cent of Dutch respondents and 54 per cent of New Zealanders said they could get same-day medical appointments.

Canadian respondents seemed to turn to hospital emergency departments to fill the care gap, with 23 per cent saying they visited an emergency room to get help for a problem that could have been treated by a family doctor if one were available. Only six per cent of German and Dutch respondents said they sought care from an emergency department that they could have received from a family doctor.

That last point is also unsurprising: new doctors in Canada disproportionally prefer to set up practice in large urban centres. Small towns (population less than 250,000) are significantly under-served. Lots of dentists, chiropractors, and other health professionals, just no MDs.