Province releases data on surgical wait times – Winnipeg Free Press

Manitoba released updated surgical wait times Friday afternoon after the opposition Progressive Conservatives questioned why the most recent available information was nearly six months old and demanded more timely statistics.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara made an earlier announcement about the government's plan to create a central, provincial waiting list, saying the timing of the release of the waiting time data was coincidental.

At a press conference on Friday morning, Tory health critic Kathleen Cook accused the government of suppressing data on waiting times.

These numbers are now through December.

The data shows that waiting times for heart surgery have halved, but there have been no significant changes in waiting times for hip, knee or cataract surgery over the past year.

The average wait time — with half of patients waiting less time and half waiting longer — for all heart surgery in Manitoba was seven days in December, down from 17 days in December 2022. The data was last updated in August. , the average wait was 16 days.

The average wait time for all hip and knee surgeries combined was 26 weeks in December 2023, compared to 25 weeks in August and 28 weeks in December 2022.

Manitoba has seen a decrease in wait times for cataract surgery in recent years, but last year Winnipeg didn't see a significant difference. The average wait for cataract removal in the city was five to six weeks in December. The average wait time across the province was about eight weeks.

Cook, the MLA for Roblin, called on the government to release data on wait times by next Friday, saying Manitobans deserve transparency. The data was posted Friday afternoon, and the time stamps on the spreadsheets indicate the province compiled the data on Jan. 28.

Calling it an “interesting coincidence,” Cook said he didn't believe the data would have been released Friday if he hadn't called it.

Asagwara took the opportunity to tease a centralized wait time data system for all of Manitoba, which he said is being developed with surgeons' offices and health authorities. The date of its implementation has not yet been announced.

Asagwara followed Cook's allegation and the work of the previous Tory government's surgical and diagnostic task force to send patients out of the province for some procedures. The NDP completed the working group in the fall.

“I know the timing seems interesting to people. It's just a coincidence, but I'm excited to talk about our government's efforts to strengthen home health care to provide (Manitobans) access to surgery and diagnostics in their province and a priority approach for the people of the country. this province is not a private company in America.'

Wait times were tracked by the task force until August, when it promised a centralized wait time collection system that never materialized.

The Tories criticized the NDP government's decision to shut down the task force without another plan.

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