Studies conducted at the University of Manitoba concludes that wait times for people needing surgeries affect patients negatively.
The pair of studies showed that a delayed wait on surgeries affected patients' physical health as well as their mental health.
"There’s a lot of implications for difficulties in accessing surgical care not only to the patient in terms of physical and mental health outcomes but to the health care organizations," said Dr. Renée El-Gabalawy, assistant professor of clinical health psychology and anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine, Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences.
"It’s really important to understand these trends in Canada in order to think about solutions."
A doctoral student in clinical psychology within the department of psychology, Jordana Sommer led the studies.
They based their conclusions on data received between 2005 and 2014.
"Although this data was collected pre-COVID, I think it reflects some of the issues and problems we might be seeing as we progress with the pandemic," says El-Gabalawy, who is the senior and corresponding author for the studies.
The study found that people who indicated difficulties accessing surgery waited on average 131 days. This is compared to those who said they didn’t have any challenges and waited on average 54 days.
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