Albertans waiting longer for cancer surgeries than rest of Canada

Albertans who need cancer surgery are waiting longer than people in other parts of the country, new statistics show.

Annual data for 2015 from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that wait times for cancer-related surgeries in Alberta were anywhere from a few days to a few weeks longer than the national average.

Albertans who needed surgery forbladder cancer, for example, waited on average for70 days.

That was the second-longest wait when compared to other provinces, and 11 days longer than the national average.

Albertanswho neededcolorectal cancer surgeryalso waited an average of 70 days for the procedure, 24 days longer than they would have two years ago, and 23 days longer than the national average.

The CIHI data looked at wait times for bladder, breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer surgeries.

Some positive numbers

Of those, only lung cancer wait times have improved since 2013, but Albertans are still waiting longer for surgery than other Canadians.

In Alberta, 90 per cent of lung cancer patients waitedon average 62 days for surgery. That average is 23 days shorter than it was two years ago, but still two weeks longer than the national average.

"There's been a significant improvement in that area,"saidDr.FrancoisBelanger, acting vice-president of quality and chief medical officer for Alberta Health Services. "That suggests that we've made some inroads."

The good news in the numbers showed thatAlbertans gothip and knee replacements more quickly, on average, than other Canadians.

Most patientswaited 209 days for hip replacement surgery, an improvement of 41 days from wait times in 2013.

For people who needed knee replacements, the wait time wasan average of 237 days, which was 57 days shorter than it was two years ago.

Last year, AHS was given an extra $20 million to speed up wait times for cancer surgeries. But severalfactors need to be considered when comparing wait times from province to province, or from year to year,Belanger said.

As the population ages, the incidence of cancer rises. As the population grows, there are more people using the health care system. And better screening catches more cancer cases earlier, which alsoleads to more surgeries, he added.

"From my perspective ... every cancer and every patientis important."