How does this compare to other counties with first world healthcare? This raw number means nothing to me because I can't tell if it's even particularly bad statistically.

... In Canada.

The website is of a "free market think tank", which other project is a video series called "Survivors of Socialism". Yeah.

I guess this is inducing a genetic fallacy, the number might be accurate anyway, but here's the salt.

Edit to add: OK, here's one sample report from their own FOI: https://secondstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BC-%E2%8...

86 people died while waiting for a cataract operation, 17 people died while waiting for a knee operation... OMG, Canadian healthcare is deathly terrible!!!

Notice that this makes great sense macroeconomically. So you are warned: you will get the healthcare you demand, in addition to that which you pay for. And a certain amount of gaming of the healthcare system is always required. One further note. The more serious your condition the more likely for (1) doctor mistakes and oversights (2) omitted treatments. This requires vigilance and manual correction by you.

This includes people on a waitlist for hip operations. Are those life-threatening?

Tangentially related (because oversubscription): https://www.euronews.com/health/2025/10/22/hospital-crises-l...

[Canada]

"Died on waitlists" != died from not having the procedure they were waiting for

> while waiting for surgeries or diagnostic scans.

How do you fix this problem, though? Unless the claim is that the triage system is flawed (i.e. patients are being treated in the wrong order, and patients who don't need treatment are using resources that should go to these other patients), the only way to reduce these numbers would be to increase the number of doctors/hospitals/etc to cover the shortfall.

While it might seem like you should obviously spend more if you can save lives, there is obviously a trade off... how many of those people would have died with treatment anyway, and what would you give up if you spent more money on health care?

By itself, this data doesn't tell us if anything is being done wrong here. It could be that the triage system is perfect, and these people who are dying were on waitlists because they couldn't be saved by treatment anyway.

I know there is a gut instinct that we should spend whatever it takes to save every single life, but there has to be limits. Is spending 100 million dollars for a 5% chance to save a 60 year old worth it? It sounds horrible to ask the question, but it has to be asked.