The British Columbia Anesthesiologists’ Society has sent a letter earlier this month to the provinces 87 MLA’s.
The letter dated Sept 9 voiced concern over the long wait times across the province for surgical treatment. The BCAS go the data from the Ministry of Health’s Surgical Patient Registry, which tracks all patients who are booked and waiting for surgery.
Dr. Roland Orfaly, CEO of the B.C. Anesthesiologists’ Society said when they look at the data in summer the waitlist went longer then what was originally reported.
“It was 85,468 in 2018 and by June of this year it had gone up more than 3000 to 88, 481 and that is the number that we wrote to the MLA’s about,” he said
According to Dr. Orfaly, the number is now at 91,150 patients waiting. He has also talked to patients who have had to wait a year or two for their surgery.
Dr. Orfaly also said the BCAS also wanted to make the province aware of this problem.
“We want it to give them a good picture of what’s going on provincially in terms of surgical capacity, at the same time we want it to be clear that there are solutions,” he said.
According to Dr. Orfaly hospital staff would like to improve the efficiency of the operating rooms and know that the wait times can be fixed.