BURST
The number of patients waiting to see a specialist in B.C. jumped by 10 per cent in a year, from 2024 to 2025, according to a survey released Tuesday by Doctors of B.C. and Consultant Specialists of B.C.
The survey confirmed what health officials told Postmedia earlier this year, that specialist wait times continue to soar with no sign of easing up.
More than 1.3 million British Columbians are waiting to see a specialist, according to the report. In some areas, including cardiology, neurology and orthopedics, the wait time is now over a year.
That figure is up from the 2024 survey, which showed an estimated 1.2 million were waiting to see a specialist.
For urgent cases, the wait is about four weeks. For semi-urgent cases, it’s about 10 weeks. The report also found that patients with non-urgent referrals are waiting about 10 months to more than a year, depending on the specialist.
Doctors say wait times are not only reaching “unprecedented levels” but nearly five per cent of the more than 1,000 specialists that participated in the survey have closed their practice to new referrals as they deal with a backlog of patients.
The survey also suggests that 36 per cent have either partly closed their practice to new referrals or are considering doing so in the next year.
With many practices closing referrals, doctors worry the problem is going to get much worse.
“Continuing with the status quo is not an option,” said Dr. Robert Carruthers, a neurologist and president of Consultant Specialists of B.C.
“This concern is critical because as the system gets bogged down with lengthening waitlists, and specialists get to the point where they can’t actually accept any new referrals for non-urgent issues. It means that it’s not going to be clear to family doctors who’s even accepting referrals, where do we send people, and it creates this spiralling inefficiency in the system.”
Recommendations to address the crisis from the health group include a wait-list management plan, including a wait-list database; new tools for earlier support to family physicians and their patients; an increase in residency spaces; and support for specialist team-based care in clinics.
Another part of the wait-list management plan would be a written advice fee, so that when a specialist receives a consultation, they can provide written advice first to the family doctor.
Asked whether the government would act on the recommendation to build a wait-list database, something the health groups have been pushing for years, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry sent an email from the minister that did not directly answer the question.
“We are working closely with physicians to improve access to specialist care, modernize referral pathways, reduce administrative burden and strengthen the specialist workforce,” said the minister Josie Osborne.
“We have made significant investments to recruit and retain physicians, expand medical training, improve access to diagnostic services and build a stronger health care system for the future.”
Osborne said there is more work to be done, and pledged that the government will work with Doctors of B.C. and other health agencies to ensure people can access the specialist care they need.
Carruthers said he’s confident the minister understands that this problem exists, but says right now the ministry has zero eyes on this particular issue.
“When the ministry speaks about wait times and access to specialist care, they tend to conflate wait times for surgical operations or for surgery after people have already seen the specialist,” he said.
“But if you haven’t even gotten in the door to see the specialist, then that’s the real pressure in the system.”
He said some reasons the system is under pressure is because baby boomers have reached an age where they require more care and there has been a steep increase in population over the past decade.
Other findings from the survey include that 80 per cent of specialists believe patients do not have the access they need to specialist care, and that B.C. lacks an adequate number of specialists to meet the population’s health demands.
A majority — nearly 90 per cent — of family physicians have found it difficult for their patients to access specialist care over the past year, according to the survey. The same percentage reported an increase in moral distress, anxiety or burnout as the main effect of lengthy wait times.
Dr. Anna Kindy, MLA for North Island and the Opposition health critic, blamed the specialist wait-list crisis on “years of NDP mismanagement.”
“Seventy per cent of specialists say their waitlists grew last year. This government is failing patients and specialists alike, and it is getting worse every single year,” Kindy said in a statement.
“On top of everything, this government is not tracking the wait time to see non-surgical specialty. How can you resource health care without proper data?”
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