<P> Since 2002, the Canadian government has invested $5.5 billion to decrease wait times . In April 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that all ten provinces and three territories would establish patient wait times guarantees by 2010 . Canadians will be guaranteed timely access to health care in at least one of the following priority areas, prioritized by each province: cancer care, hip and knee replacement, cardiac care, diagnostic imaging, cataract surgeries or primary care . The current cultural shift towards evidence - based medicine is burgeoning in Canada with the advent of organizations like Choosing Wisely Canada . Organizations like this hope to encourage and facilitate doctor - patient communication, decreasing unnecessary care in Canada, and therefore hopefully decreasing wait times . </P> <P> In a 2007 episode of ABC News's 20 / 20 titled "Sick in America", libertarian John Stossel cited numerous examples of Canadians who did not get the health care that they needed . The conservative Fraser Institute found that treatment time from initial referral by a GP through consultation with a specialist to final treatment, across all specialties and all procedures (emergency, non-urgent, and elective), averaged 17.7 weeks in 2005, contradicting the Canadian government's 2007 report regarding itself . </P> <P> It has been speculated and supported in data that the complete elimination of all waiting times is not ideal . When waiting lists arise through a prioritization process based on physician - determined medical urgency and the procedure's risk, (in contrast to patient's ability to pay or profitability for the physician), waiting lists can possibly help patients . It's been postulated that a system of immediate care can be detrimental for optimal patient outcomes, as unnecessary or unproven surgery might not be easily avoided if all patients are granted instant care . </P> <P> An example is the Canadian province of British Columbia, where, according to surgeon Dr. Lawrence Burr, 15 heart patients died in 1990 while on a waiting list for heart surgery . According to Robin Hutchinson, senior medical consultant to the Health Ministry's heart program, had the waiting list not existed and all patients given instant access to the surgery, the expected number of fatalities would have been 22 due to the operation mortality rate at that time . Hutchison noted that the BC Medical Association's media campaign did not make reference to these comparative statistics and focused on deaths during waiting for surgery . Since, ideally, waiting lists prioritize higher - risk patients to receive surgery ahead of those with lower risks, this helps reduce overall patient mortality . Consequently, a wealthy or highly insured patient in a system based on profit or ability to pay (as in the U.S.) may be pushed into surgery or other procedures more quickly, with a result in higher morbidity or mortality risk . This is in addition to the better - understood phenomenon in which lower - income, uninsured, or under - insured patients have their care denied or delayed, also resulting in worse health care . </P>

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