Wait time to see medical specialist in Quebec has doubled since before pandemic

Dominique D’Anjou is one of the hundreds of thousands of Quebecers waiting to see a medical specialist.

Her family doctor referred her to a neurologist and a pulmonologist. A year later, she’s still waiting for her appointment.

“It’s stressful, of course, because you don’t know what’s wrong with you. You wonder if it’s going to get worse. You can’t think about it too much,” she said. “It’s a bit worrisome.”

According to Quebec’s Health Ministry, more than 790,000 people in the province are waiting to see a medical specialist.

And the wait time is nearly 14 months — twice as long as before the pandemic. 

Since D’Anjou’s case is not considered urgent, she feels she could be waiting even longer.

Exodus from public to private sector

Élise Girouard-Chantal, a graduating resident in family medicine and a board member of the Médecins québécois pour le régime public (MQRP), says while the pandemic is partly to blame for the backlog, she believes staffing shortages are also a contributing factor. 

“We’d probably be able to shorten waiting lists if we didn’t have a significant exodus of specialists to the private network happening at the same time,” she said. 

She notes many specialists are leaving for the private sector in search of better working conditions.

“When you work in the private sector, you don’t do weekend or night shifts. You work nine to five. The cases are a little lighter. The government needs to recognize that this has a significant impact on accessibility and address the problem,” said Girouard-Chantal. 

According to the Health Ministry, the number of pending requests for a medical specialist in March 2019 was 213,234, with an average wait time of around 178 days. In March 2024, that number was 793,411 with an average wait of around 425 days. 

Inadequate IT systems

Serge Legault, vice-president of the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec, believes that the health system’s IT infrastructure is also to blame for the increase in delays.

He says that the Centre de répartition des demandes de service (CRDS), which connects patients with doctors, is failing.

“The health-care system is a system in which patients are seen by doctors and cared for by health-care teams. The computer system is supposed to help with this. Right now, the CRDS is hindering this,” Legault said. 

Girouard-Chantal says delays are so long that patients come back to family doctors to make another request. 

“Not only does this clog up the front line, but it also sends the request back to the CRDS, which creates a duplicate,” she said. 

Legault is calling on the government to implement more innovative ways for doctors to connect with their patients.