More than 400 people died in Saskatchewan last year while waiting for surgery or a diagnostic scan, according to a new report. That’s compared to 343 deaths this year, which is an increase of more than 15 per cent.
According to a report from Second Street.org, a public policy think tank, each death is not entirely the responsibility of the government but there is a need for health reform and better data tracking.
“One of the biggest problems in Saskatchewan where patients are dying while waiting for surgery is cataract surgery,” said Second Street.org president, Colin Craig. “So, you’re probably not going to die because you don’t receive your cataract surgery in time. But there is a quality-of-life question here.”
Craig said one idea, borrowed from Europe, is to allow patients in Saskatchewan to go to other jurisdictions, pay for procedures and get reimbursed when they return.
“That would take pressure off of the system in Saskatchewan when some patients decide to pursue that option. There’s lots of things that can be done,” he said. “We’re seeing some things happen in Canada. If we do more than we can reduce the amount of patients suffering.”
Saskatchewan Health Minister Everett Hindley said it’s a problem the province is working on, as it has to deal with an increasing number of patients. Since 1993, the government has spent at least five times more on the average person when it comes to health care, which is more than $5,500 a person.
“Every province saw a spike when it came to the waitlist. Here in Saskatchewan, it was around 2021 at the height of the pandemic when the surgical waitlist was at 35,000 people,” said Minister Hindley. “We’ve poured more money into increasing, not just the number of surgeries but the baseline number of surgeries that we do on an annual basis in the past couple of years. And we will do that again in years to come.”
In response to Minister Hindley, the Saskatchewan NDP Health Critic Aleana Young said it’s always one excuse or another. Due to that, Young said there will be “horrible consequences that we are going to have more people passing away waiting for these surgeries.”
“If money is not the issue and you’re proud of the capacity that you’ve built in,” said Young. “As the minister has said multiple times, then I am very curious as to what his answer to the problem is.”