October 25, 2005

How Long for Health Wait Times?

At 9:00 PM Pacific Daylight Savings Time, October 24th, the issue of wait lists was 24th on the list in the federal government news website. The agreed upon statement from the Annual Conference of Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers of Health said:

The joint statement went on to say: "Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers agreed to undertake a joint research program to develop a body of clinical evidence that demonstrates how wait times affect patients' health."

Watch out for the tricky wording! Provincial Ministers of Health are looking at what evidence exists with regards to health outcomes and wait times. It may be true that a cataract operation will be equally successful whether it is done when vision is initially impaired or whether it is done 10 years later when the patient is totally blind.

The question of whether evidence exists to support how long patients can wait without the outcome being compromised is fundamentally different from the question of how many quality-of-life-adjusted years are lost as a result of delaying surgery.

It doesn't take years of research for anyone to understand that regaining one's sight at age 70 is better than regaining it at age 80. Provincial health ministers should shake their heads if they cannot understand the difference between evidence based wait-times as related to quality of remaining years of life compared to evidence for how long one can wait before a procedure is less effective.

It appears that the debate over wait times will be lost in the rush to a federal election. Health Minster Ujjal Dosanjh appears to be concerned that the Martin government could take some heat over not delivering on the promised December 31, 2005, minimum wait times for cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements and sight restoration. BC's Minster of Health, George Abbott, was previously quoted as saying: ""For the present time there are probably only a few areas in which one might be able to move forward by evidence-based benchmarks."

How many British Columbians are willing to suffer pain or go blind because Abbott doesn't understand the difference between "how long can you wait" compared to what it does to your quality of life to wait?