B.C.’s health-care system is still far behind national benchmarks for cancer care wait times, despite the province pouring in new money and hiring scores of additional staff.
Wait times for some types of treatment are decreasing, but the overall picture shows B.C. falling behind the rest of Canada.
The longest waits are to get an initial oncology appointment, with almost half of cancer patients waiting longer than the four-week benchmark to see an oncologist.
These delays were at the core of the issues described by Sara Gillooly, a long-time friend of Independent MLA Amelia Boultbee, who appeared at the B.C. legislature on Wednesday (Jan. 21) to share the story of her cancer journey and its impact on her family.
Gillooly’s breast cancer diagnosis and surgery took about 10 weeks from when she first turned up at the hospital. She does not complain about this timeline. The problems began afterward when she had to wait eight more weeks for an oncology appointment, and another three for test results.
That’s when she found out her cancer was not gone — it had spread to her bones and lungs.
Canada’s nationwide benchmark is for 90 per cent of cancer patients to be seen by a medical or radiation oncologist within four weeks of referral, for radiation to begin within four weeks of being ordered, and for systemic therapy to begin within two weeks of being ordered.
The B.C. government has made it a point to highlight progress on treatment times in news releases and statements over the past year. The health ministry provided data from the latest period, Nov. 7 to Dec. 4, 2025, showing that 90.7 per cent of patients are receiving radiation within four weeks, and 95.1 per cent are receiving systemic therapy within two weeks.
But treatment can only begin after a patient sees the oncologist.
At the close of 2025, 52.6 per cent of patients saw a radiation oncologist on time and 62.6 per cent saw a medical oncologist within the benchmarked timeframe, according to data provided by the ministry.
For the 90th percentile patient, this means wait times of 10.1 weeks to see a radiation oncologist and 8.1 weeks to see a medical oncologist. So when the government says it takes fewer than four weeks for radiation treatment to begin, for the patient in the 90th percentile, that could still mean a 14-week wait.
And this has not improved significantly over the past three years. In 2023, 52.8 per cent saw a radiation oncologist on time, and 55.7 per cent saw a medical oncologist within the wait time benchmarks.
BC Cancer points out that it is also dealing with increasing demand. During that timeframe, the average number of daily radiation oncology consults increased from 82 to 93 per day, while the medical oncology consults jumped from 81 to 87 per day.
And despite the government highlighting that it was meeting benchmarks for radiation treatment wait times near the end of 2025, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the province still ranks last when looking at overall yearly averages.
The institute reports the 2024-2025 yearly average was 84 per cent, down from 91 per cent in 2019-2020. This differs from the percentage treatment numbers the province provided, which are a snapshot of just one month.
Defending the record
Throughout the past few years, the B.C. government has worked to deploy additional resources, recruit new staff and make the situation more equitable for rural British Columbians. Since 2017, the government committed more than $1 billion to cancer care, and in 2023, it introduced a 10-year cancer action plan.
Along with updated statistics on wait times, the government provided updated hiring figures to show this work.
Since April 1, 2023, BC Cancer has hired the equivalent of 85.9 new full-time medical staff members, bringing the total to 464.3. Regional cancer centres have increased staffing by 386.1 full-time equivalents, bringing the total to 1,679.1. Other non-localized provincial staff numbers have almost doubled, from 88.2 to 160.6.
The health ministry also points out that four new cancer centres are currently being built, radiological imaging hours are being extended, a new lab is being built and new cutting-edge screening technologies are being introduced.
The ministry also questions some of the statistics used by Boultbee and B.C. Conservative MLAs to portray the health system as failing.
Boultbee pointed to figures showing that more than 4,600 people died while on medical waitlists last fiscal year (up to March 31, 2025). The ministry counters that it is often the case that the procedure or test the person is waiting for is elective, and the death is completely unrelated.
Response to Gillooly’s complaints
Some of Gillooly’s complaints about the health system in B.C. go beyond wait times.
One of these is that testing for the Ki-67 protein was not done for her. This test helps determine how aggressive a person’s cancer is. It is common throughout Europe and the U.S. She almost flew overseas to a hospital in Turkey to get this and other tests more quickly.
According to BC Cancer, while this test is sometimes used by surgeons and oncologists in the province’s health system, doctors often opt to use other tests that provide similar or better information. But Gillooly also questioned why other testing, including radiological imaging, couldn’t have been done sooner.
B.C.’s Health Sciences Association (HSA), the union representing specialized health professionals in the province, put out a statement on Thursday expressing “deep dismay” over Gillooly’s situation.
HSA president Sarah Kooner said there are shortages of qualified staff at all levels of diagnostic testing.
“Every day, I hear from members concerned about how wait times leave too many of their patients without the timely care they need,” Kooner said in a written statement.
After Gillooly aired her concerns and told her story, Health Minister Josie Osborne issued a statement to extend her “deepest sympathy” for what she is going through.
“A cancer diagnosis is devastating, and any wait for care feels far too long,” Osborne said in an emailed statement. “It can be frightening and frustrating, not just for patients but for their families as well, and people deserve timely, compassionate care when they need it most.”
The minister went on to highlight the work the province is doing to hire more workers, improve care and decrease wait times.
Paris-Ann Ingledew, chief medical officer and executive vice-president for BC Cancer, issued a similar statement, saying that she encourages patients to contact the Provincial Health Service Authority’s care quality office if they have concerns.
“We know that any wait is too long for someone with cancer,” she said. “We appreciate that, for our patients, their cancer journeys start long before they are referred to BC Cancer.”