Nearly one-quarter of British Columbians are currently on waitlists to see medical specialists, and according to a new survey of B.C.’s doctors, that number is growing by 10 per cent each year with little relief in sight.
Meanwhile, because the province does not track specialist wait times province-wide, officials may understand a problem exists but lack data to fully measure it.
“People might think that the province has a sense of how long people are waiting for what service where, but they do not have any idea,” said Dr. Robert Carruthers, president of Consultant Specialists of BC, which was involved in conducting the survey.
He says the ministry also uses selective statistics to downplay the problem, focusing on the wait times for surgery after a specialist consultation while avoiding references to wait times to see a specialist in the first place.
“Frequently, the Ministry of Health will conflate surgical wait times with patients’ first consultation wait times,” he said.
Consultant Specialists of BC, Doctors of BC and BC Family Doctors surveyed more than 1,000 specialists and primary care physicians, finding a 10 per cent increase in average waitlist size between 2024 and 2025, following a similar increase the year before.
In addition, 80 per cent of specialists say the system is not meeting needs and is worsening over time, while 90 per cent report increased stress, burnout and moral distress. Nearly 5 per cent have closed their practices to new referrals, while 36 per cent are partially closed to new referrals or considering closing them in the next year.
Specialist doctors want the province to work with them on creating a better waitlist management system, with provisions that allow them to provide written advice to family doctors for less urgent cases, give them time in their week to manage waitlists and triage properly, and provide better data collection to create lists of who is waiting for what and where.
An obvious solution proposed by the province is to continue hiring more specialists, but it can be difficult to make an impact this way. Recently, the province touted the hiring of 40 to 50 new specialists, but Carruthers says thousands are needed. And introducing that many requires more workspaces and onboarding time.
Acknowledging the province’s financial pressures, he says these other proposals are low-cost solutions that could make a real impact.
In a statement, Health Minister Josie Osborne said the government is working to modernize referral pathways, reduce administrative burden and hire more doctors. The ministry also points out that B.C. has the highest number of specialists per capita and that the government is implementing some pooled referral systems, which have reduced wait times.
“Specialists play an important role in managing their waitlists, and our government has increased funding and taken actions to support this work,” Osborne said.
But B.C. Conservative Health critic Anna Kindy says “mismanagement” of the health care system is to blame, and that the lack of data tracking shows how little the government understands the crisis.
“This government is failing patients and specialists alike, and it is getting worse every single year,” she said in a written statement.
A long time in the making
Carruthers says medical providers have known a crisis was looming for a long time. The demographic changes are obvious — baby boomers are getting older and need more care. Simultaneously, B.C.’s population has grown, increasing from roughly 4.7 million in 2014 to 5.7 million in 2024.
Compounding this is the knock-on effects of the province’s progress in addressing the primary care crisis. With more visits to family doctors come more referrals, hence the proposal to allow specialists to provide advice and “wait and see” before scheduling an appointment.
Carruthers’s specialty is neurology, treating patients with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s. He explained that even short waits can be extremely impactful.
“I accepted a referral to my clinic in Prince George for a young man who likely had multiple sclerosis, and in the time between when we accepted the referral and when I saw him, he basically became unable to walk in a month,” Carruthers said.
The survey found the average wait time for urgent cases is four weeks. But for non-urgent cases, it is 10 months — and it can be more than a year for some specialists. Such is the case for people dealing with a tremor and waiting to be evaluated for Parkinson’s.
“Living with that kind of uncertainty and disability is very difficult,” Carruthers said.
At times, he said, it feels to doctors like putting less severe patients lower down on waitlists is now essentially a denial of care, causing “moral injury” for specialists forced to make these sorts of choices.