'Our health-care system is failing': More than 74,000 Canadians died waiting for health care since 2018

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Health care accessibility in Canada is facing some scrutiny, after a new report indicated tens of thousands of people in the country have died since 2018 while on waitlists for services. It also added that between 2023 and 2024, thousands of Canadians have died while waiting for health care.

The "Died on a Waiting List" report, released by Canadian think tank SecondStreet.org on Wednesday, looked at data from health authorities recorded between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024, finding at least 15,474 people on health-care waitlists died in Canada within that time period.

However, the research institute noted this data is incomplete, since it excludes Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador as well as most of Manitoba. Moreover, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia only provided data on patients who died while waiting for surgeries, not those seeking diagnostic scans. Overall, the report noted only 12 health bodies across seven provinces — which represents around 62 per cent of Canada's population — were able to provide full or partial data.

In turn, the number of people who died within that time period likely almost doubles to just over 28,000 people. Since April 2018, the data showed 74,677 cases of Canadians dying while waiting for health care.

"Canadians pay really high taxes and yet our health-care system is failing when compared to better-performing universal systems in Europe," legislative and policy director at the research institute, Harrison Fleming, said in the press release. "Thousands of Canadians across the country find themselves on waitlists — in some cases for several years — with too many tragically dying before ever getting treated, or even diagnosed."

According to the report, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia were the only provinces that provided data on the number of patients who died in that time period while waiting for both surgeries and diagnostic scans.

• British Columbia: 988 (surgery) and 3,528 (diagnostic) deaths

• Ontario: 1,935 (surgery) and 7,947 (diagnostic) deaths

• Prince Edward Island: 17 (surgery) and 207 (diagnostic) deaths

For the provinces that only provided partial data, those deaths were related to patients waiting for surgeries. The report showed that within that time period, there were 385 deaths in Saskatchewan, 51 deaths in New Brunswick and 373 deaths in Nova Scotia. Two out of the five health regions in Manitoba reported 31 deaths.

SecondStreet.org started looking into this research in 2019. The research institute had been inspired by the stories of numerous Canadians who died or almost died while waiting for health care.

That includes Michel Houle, a 72-year-old man in Saint-Colomban, Que., who died while waiting to get major heart surgery for several months. The think tank also cited the stories of 18-year-old Ontario teen Laura Hillier who died while waiting for a stem cell transplant, as well as 46-year-old Albertan dad Jerry Dunham who died waiting for a pacemaker.

This year's report follows the research institute's findings from the prior year. The 2023 report indicated at least 17,032 people in Canada died while waiting for a surgery or diagnostic scan, excluding data from most of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Manitoba.

"When a restaurant fails a health inspection, the government shares the news publicly and sometimes notices are posted in the establishment's windows for everyone to see," SecondStreet.org President Colin Craig said in the statement published this Wednesday. "But, when nearly 75,000 Canadians have died before getting the care they needed, governments don't proactively disclose anything. Maybe it's time for governments to hold themselves to the same standard they hold everyone else."

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