Wait times affect kids too

We are pleased that Dr. Brian Postl has been named the new Federal Advisor on Wait Times.1 Despite a mandate prescribed by the First Ministers' Health Accord of 2004 to concentrate on five key areas (heart, cancer, diagnostic imaging, joint replacement and sight restoration), we hope that Dr. Postl's experience as a pediatrician will give him insight into a 6th key area: children's surgical wait times. Children rarely need heart revascularization, cataract surgery or hip replacements, but they may need surgery for serious birth defects, cancer, traumatic injuries and a variety of other conditions, ranging from minor to life-threatening. In BC, we have compared our wait times for children's surgery with those suggested by our professional organizations and have found that only 35% of BC children undergoing elective surgery did so within recommended wait times. Among children requiring cancer surgery, only 38% had operations during weekday working hours.2 From this we conclude that the combination of deferred elective surgery and increased out of hours emergent or urgent (cancer) surgery are the adjustments necessary to enable timely surgical treatment for children of BC. Neither approach is safe or sustainable.

The Pediatric Surgical Chiefs of Canada believe that there is much to be done for children's surgical care delivery in Canada: let's set national “benchmarks” for children's waiting times and monitor our performance.