A new study from the Fraser Institute says long wait times for surgery and medically necessary treatment costs the average Canadian patient $3,364 in lost wages and reduced productivity.
According to the report, The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care, 2025, the largest wage and productivity losses were reported in Prince Edward Island (PEI), while Nova Scotia patients reported the lowest value of time lost during the work week in 2024. In PEI in 2024, the per-patient cost of waiting came in at $6,592, followed by New Brunswick ($6,210) and Quebec ($4,261). In Nova Scotia, comparatively, the figure comes in at $2,387 lost.
They say the total – $5.2-billion in lost wages, in total – is likely a conservative estimate because it doesn’t account for the 15 week average wait to see a specialist following a general practitioner’s referral. Procedural counts are based on post-pandemic 2022-2023 fiscal year data. (They note a significant increase in the number of procedures being reported today when compared to 2021 and 2022.) It also does not take lost productivity due to mental anguish into account.
More, they say if researchers were to value all hours of the week, including evenings and weekends but excluding eight hours of sleep per night, this increased the estimated cost of waiting to $15.9-billion or about $10,266 per person.
In looking at the value of the time that is lost while waiting for treatment, the report includes the estimated number of procedures by province and specialty, the median wait times for treatment following a specialist’s appointment, by province and specialty and the estimated cost of waiting for medically necessary health services, from specialist appointment to treatment, by province and specialty.
“For historical perspective, the estimated $3,364 private cost of waiting for treatment per patient in 2024 is 79 per cent higher than the $1,884 (inflation adjusted) estimated for 2004. The nominal cost per patient waiting in 2024 is 17.2 per cent higher than in 2023,” they write. “If hours outside of the work week are included, the estimated $10,226 private cost of waiting per patient in 2024 is 79 per cent higher than the $5,749 estimated for 2004.”
