Healthcare Wait Times & Access Act
Category: Health — Health
Summary
Mandate maximum wait times for surgeries and specialists, with funding to expand operating room capacity.
What this proposal changes
- Legislates maximum wait-time benchmarks for 10 priority surgical procedures (joint replacement, cataract, cardiac, oncology, and others).
- Funds expansion of operating room hours to evenings and weekends at existing facilities.
- Requires health authorities to offer patients an alternative provider — including out-of-province — when benchmarks are breached.
- Establishes a public wait-time dashboard updated weekly for all major procedures and specialist categories.
Arguments for
- Legislated benchmarks create accountability that voluntary targets have failed to deliver in BC over two decades.
- Evening and weekend OR expansion makes use of expensive infrastructure currently idle more than 50% of the time.
- Public dashboards empower patients to make informed referral decisions and create political pressure for system improvement.
Arguments against
- Legislated wait-time guarantees without sufficient staffing simply shift queues rather than reduce them.
- Offering out-of-province alternatives may accelerate privatisation pathways and undermine the principle of a single-payer system.
- Weekend OR expansion requires overtime premium pay and faces union agreement requirements that may slow implementation.
Cost & implementation
OR expansion capital and staffing: $400–800 million over five years. Out-of-province referral backstop: variable, capped by benchmark breach rates. Dashboard system: $5–10 million.
Jurisdiction & legal authority
Healthcare delivery is fully within provincial jurisdiction under the Canada Health Act and BC's Medicare Protection Act. No federal approval required beyond CHA compliance.
How to vote
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