FILE PHOTO.

(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

In the last fiscal year, 1,600 patients died on waitlists in the Interior Health region.

There were 1,364 people who died while on medical imaging waitlists and 222 who died while on surgical waitlists between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025, according to Interior Health documents. 

“This is the human toll of a collapsing healthcare system. These aren’t just statistics — every number is a name, a loved one, a family torn apart,” Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew said in an email. “A person failed by government inaction and bureaucratic mismanagement."

It's a six-year high for deaths on waitlists in the IH region, according to healthcare advocacy group SecondStreet.org.

More than a third of patients who died on waitlists had waited for more than the benchmark wait time. For surgical waitlists, 38 per cent had been waiting longer than the benchmark and for medical imaging, 39 waited longer than the benchmark.

The benchmark wait time varies depending on what test or surgery the person was waiting for. For urgent cases, the benchmark is seven days and for non-urgent cases the benchmark is 60 days.

"From waitlist deaths to the pediatric crisis at Kelowna General Hospital, the NDP has clearly lost control of our healthcare system. British Columbians deserve urgent, common-sense reforms — not more denial and delay,” Dew said.

READ MORE: 'Palate cleanser': Leadership change unlikely to fix dysfunction at Interior health

Most folks died waiting for CT scans or ultrasounds. There were 584 CT scans and 302 ultrasound and vascular imaging appointments cancellations due to patient death. 

Some of the surgeries were for non-life-threatening conditions, for example 86 people died while waiting for cataract extraction and intraocular lens implants.

“It is not possible to directly correlate waitlists for surgery and medical imaging with deaths, and it is misleading to suggest that patients died because they were waiting for surgery or medical imaging. In many cases, the procedure or test may have been elective and/or the cause of death was completely unrelated to it,” Interior Health said in an email.

The number of surgeries per year in the Interior Health region has gone up 25 per cent in five years. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year the health authority oversaw 49,024 surgeries and this past fiscal year there were 61,236.

“Interior Health recognizes that waiting for surgery and medical imaging impacts individuals and families. Along with the Ministry of Health, we are closely monitoring waitlists to meet increasing demands and meet the needs of the patients and communities we serve,” Interior Health said.

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