FEWER PEOPLE WAITING FOR SURGERY

The number of patients waiting for surgery in Saskatchewan continues to drop. About 2,600 fewer people are on the wait list than a year ago.

The Saskatchewan Surgical Care Network (SSCN) website, www.sasksurgery.ca, now includes complete surgical data up to March 31, 2007. It shows that 83 per cent of surgeries are completed within six months and 93 per cent within one year. The data is based on a province-wide Surgical Patient Registry that tracks all patients waiting for surgery in hospital operating rooms and their levels of urgency.

"Progress is being made on addressing long waiting patients - those who have been waiting for surgery for over a year," Health Minister Len Taylor said. "We will continue to dedicate additional funding to this priority area, as part of our plan to improve access to health services, reduce wait times, and ensure that surgical patients receive the care they need in a fair and timely manner."

"In our seven largest health regions, which perform about 98 per cent of operating room surgeries, the number of long-waiting patients dropped by about 1,200 cases last year," SSCN chair Dr. Rob Weiler said. "It is increasingly apparent that patients are benefiting from this targeting of resources and our overall management strategies."

The longest waits for non-emergency surgery in Saskatchewan continue to be in orthopaedics, plastic surgery, dental surgery and ophthalmology. Resources are being targeted at those areas. Waits are shortest for patients requiring cardiovascular and urology procedures.

In addition to base operating funding provided to health regions for surgical services, Saskatchewan is investing $10.5 million of targeted federal funding this year to make surgical system improvements and reduce the number of patients who wait longer. Of that extra funding, $1.6 million will be targeted toward performing 160 more hip and knee replacements in 2007-08.

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For more information, contact:

Joan Petrie
Health
Regina
Phone: 306-787-4083
Email: jpetrie@health.gov.sk.ca