Where you live and what you need decide your wait. New Brunswick’s median is 60.9 weeks; Ontario’s is 19.2. Orthopaedics runs 48.6 weeks nationally. Here are the verified 2025 numbers — and the arithmetic of leaving the line.
Postal-code medicine
The 2025 survey puts the national median at 28.6 weeks from GP referral to treatment — the second-longest recorded since measurement began in 1993, when it was 9.3 weeks.
The Atlantic provinces carry the heaviest load: New Brunswick at 60.9 weeks — over 14 months — with PEI at 49.7 and Nova Scotia at 49.0. Ontario’s 19.2 weeks is the country’s best and still more than double the 1993 national figure.
An estimated 1.4 million procedures sat in the queue in 2025, with lost wages and productivity estimated at $4.2 billion for the year.
Before treatment comes diagnosis
Wait-time math usually starts at referral — but many patients wait for imaging before anyone will even refer them. In 2025 Canadians waited a median 18.1 weeks for an MRI, 8.8 for a CT, and 5.4 for an ultrasound.
Four and a half months for the MRI, then the specialist queue, then the surgical queue. Waits stack; they don’t run in parallel.
Cash-pay imaging abroad flips this: MRI appointments in Colombian private clinics are typically booked in days, and 2026 cash prices commonly run a fraction of U.S. private rates. Bring the images home and the referral conversation starts from evidence, not a spot in line.
The arithmetic of leaving
Fraser’s economists counted $4.2 billion in lost wages across 1.4 million waiting patients — an average measured in thousands per patient, before pain, deconditioning, and the surgeries that get more complicated the longer they’re delayed. Against that, a planned trip to a JCI-accredited Colombian hospital with a ReTHUS-verified surgeon, at typical 2026 private-pay ranges, is not a luxury purchase. It’s a cost comparison with your own calendar.
Tell us your procedure and province. We’ll send back a realistic Colombia timeline and typical 2026 price range — sourced, honest, and specific to what you’re waiting for. Operated in person from Medellín through Colombia Medical.
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