In any public discussion of health care in Canada, the question of wait-times will inevitably come to the fore. For many, wait-times have come to be thought of as indicative of the general health of our public health system.
So it is no surprise that governments of all stripes will promise to reduce or eliminate wait-times if elected. Certainly Saskatchewan is no different, with the Saskatchewan party government introducing various initiatives to reduce wait-times for surgeries and diagnostic services throughout its 17-year long reign. What all these strategies have had in common is a reliance — to different degrees — on private, for-profit providers to reduce wait-times in our public system. While the government is keen to present itself as committed to the public system, it frames its preference for privatization as a practical, non-ideological approach, only concerned with results. So it is all the more ironic, given the government’s position, that of all the strategies that they have undertaken to reduce wait-times, it is investment in the expansion and capacity of the public system that shows the most significant results in actually reducing wait-times.
This policy brief examines the effect that government policies have had on wait-timesfor various surgeries and diagnostic services in Saskatchewan over the past 14 years.
Specifically, we explore the available wait-time data for Knee Replacement, Hip Replacement, Cataract and Hip Fracture Repair surgeries from 2010 to 2023. We also examine wait-time data for MRI and CT diagnostic scans from 2015 to 2023, to assess the impact of the government’s one-for-one MRI and CT scan initiative instituted in 2016. As this policy brief demonstrates, despite the Saskatchewan Party government’s preference for private-sector solutions to the wait-time problem, the only significant reduction in wait-times came through concerted public investment in the capacity of the public system.
