Ontario Reducing Wait Times for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Procedures

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TORONTO - As part of the Your Healthplan, the Ontario government is taking the next step to make it easier and faster for people to connect to publicly-funded surgeries and procedures by adding approximately 60,000gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy procedures at community surgical and diagnostic centres across the province each year.

"When it comes to wait times for surgeries and procedures, the status quo is not acceptable. That's why our government is taking bold action to boost access to surgeries and diagnostic imaging so Ontarians can conveniently access the care they need sooner, closer to home," said Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. "We continue to lead the country with the shortest surgical wait times of any province, and increasing access to GI endoscopy procedures will help improve rapid access to diagnostic care for early disease detection when and where people need it."

A call for applications for new licences opens today, with new licences expected to be issued starting in Winter 2025 that will connect nearly 60,000 more people to procedures each year. This expansion of services will help reduce wait times for GI endoscopy procedures across the province from the date the order/requisition was received to the date people receive their procedure.

This builds on the call for applications for MRI and CT scanslaunched in June to connect nearly 100,000 more people to MRI and CT scans at community surgical and diagnostic centres across the province each year. A third call is to be launched in the fall to expand access to orthopedic surgeries.

New community surgical and diagnostic centres build on the successes the Ontario government has achieved since the launch of Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care including:

• Achieving the shortest surgical wait times of any province in Canada in 2023, with over 80 per cent of people receiving their procedure within clinically recommended target times as of July 2024.
• Funding up to 65,568 MRI and 31,220 CT operating hours in existing community surgical and diagnostic centres over the past year.
• Adding 49 new MRI machines in 42 hospitals across the province.
• Adding four new licensed cataract centres to provide more publicly funded cataract and other eye surgeries. In the past year, the government has funded 32,000 eye surgery procedures at community surgical and diagnostic centres.
• Eliminating the backlog of cervical cancer screening tests at the end of August 2023. Testing turnaround times returned to the pre-pandemic standard of 10 to 14 days.

As the government significantly expands the number of surgeries and procedures being done through community surgical and diagnostic centres, it is ensuring these centres are integrated and linked with the broader public health system. This includes requiring new facilities to provide detailed staffing plans that protect the stability of staffing resources at public hospitals, report into the province's wait times information system and participate in regional central intakes, where available, to ensure people get the care they need as quickly as possible. All community surgical and diagnostic centres are under the oversight of Accreditation Canada'snew quality assurance program which provides the same strong requirements as public hospitals to improve quality standards at facilities and ensure consistent patient safety and quality care.

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