As the Ontario government prepares to issue new licences for surgical and diagnostic centres to perform orthopedic procedures in an effort to reduce backlogs, health-care experts say it is important to distinguish between system-wide performance and highly visible problem cases.
Dr. David Urbach, head of surgery at Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital, said there is a “huge disconnect” between public perception and what provincial data actually shows.
“Pretty close to all people are getting joint replacement within the time that the province says they should,” Urbach said in an interview with CTV News Toronto. “Eighty per cent or more are getting joint replacement within six months, which is the recommendation.”
Urbach acknowledged that wait times tend to be shorter in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area and often increase in more remote regions. Still, he said Ontario’s health-care system is in “remarkably good shape” overall, particularly for high-priority procedures.
He noted that public concern is often driven by crisis cases rather than typical patient experiences.
“There are people who have been waiting 18 months and still haven’t had surgery,” Urbach said. “This is what we frame as variation. There’s no single provincial wait list. Patients are in all sorts of different queues. It’s very fragmented and not well coordinated.”
According to Urbach, these gaps in coordination lead to uneven outcomes, with some patients attached to surgeons who have extremely long wait lists while others receive care much sooner. He said the province is actively working to address this by coordinating electronic referrals so patients can be placed in shared queues — a change expected in 2026.
National data paints a mixed picture. A June report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information showed that Canadians continue to face longer wait times for many procedures compared with pre-pandemic levels, even though surgical volumes now exceed those seen before COVID-19 in some areas.
A separate report released in September by think tank SecondStreet.org estimated that about 3.7 million Canadians are waiting for surgery, diagnostic scans or specialist appointments.
“If you’re not on a wait list yourself, you probably know someone who is,” said Dom Lucyk, the group’s director of communications.
Urbach said the most serious problems are not always in the areas that receive the most attention.
“There is a huge crisis in paediatric surgery and gynecology,” he said. “Accessing routine gynecology visits and non-cancer-related procedures is very difficult. But for cancer, hip and knee replacements, and cardiac care, Ontario does a very good job.”
Average wait times in Toronto
Ontario Health data shows the following average wait times in Toronto, broken down by procedure and patient priority level:
Arterial bypass (all)
- 86% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 59 days
- Priority 3: 88 days
- Priority 2: 29 days
Cataract surgery
- 84% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 101 days
- Priority 3: 71 days
- Priority 2: 19 days
Gallbladder surgery
- 93% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 51 days
- Priority 3: 49 days
- Priority 2: 24 days
Hip replacement
- 87% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 85 days
- Priority 3: 64 days
- Priority 2: 60 days
Hysterectomy
- 78% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 124 days
- Priority 3: 97 days
- Priority 2: 44 days
Kidney stone removal
- 96% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 38 days
- Priority 3: 21 days
- Priority 2: 24 days
Knee replacement
- 85% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 97 days
- Priority 3: 71 days
- Priority 2: 69 days
Thyroid surgery
- 94% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 58 days
- Priority 3: 46 days
- Priority 2: 32 days
Benign tumour removal
- 92% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 33 days
- Priority 3: 30 days
- Priority 2: 21 days
Paediatric cardiac surgery
- 100% treated within target time
- Priority 4: 0 days
- Priority 3: 0 days
- Priority 2: 1 day
Paediatric CT scans — general
- 75% within target time
- Priority 4: 62 days
- Priority 3: 74 days
- Priority 2: 114 days
Paediatric CT scans — otolaryngology
- 74% within target time
- Priority 4: 118 days
- Priority 3: 96 days
- Priority 2: 143 days
Urbach emphasized that while wait times are not universally problematic, targeted improvements are still needed.
“The situation isn’t perfect,” he said. “But when you look at the data overall, wait times in Ontario are not the overwhelming failure they’re often portrayed to be.”