OTTAWA -Two years after first ministers negotiated a health accord that was supposed to fix medicare for a generation, a new report says there's no clear evidence wait times are being reduced.
The Wait Time Alliance says lack of data from the provinces makes it impossible to assess the impact of the $41-billion, 10-year health agreement.
Under the accord, provinces were to provide comparable indicators on access to care, but that hasn't happened.
"We just don't have the information," said Colin McMillan, president of the Canadian Medical Association, in an interview Wednesday.
He said the report is based on web sites which have been set up in eight of 10 provinces to provide the public with information on wait times, but the information is deficient.
"We think maybe some of the good ones are current and some of the not-so-good ones are old, but we don't know that.
"Secondly, there are large areas of 'incomplete' - there is either no data or the data is incomplete."
Experts who worked on the report said it's regrettable that the provinces use inconsistent methodology to report results, making it impossible to identify leaders or laggards.
Two provinces - Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland - have not set up wait-time web sites.
The alliance does give governments high marks for setting wait-time benchmarks in four out of five high-priority areas - joint replacement, cancer care, sight restoration and cardiac care.
But there's still no benchmark for diagnostic imaging, the fifth area identified in the 2004 accord.
The provinces have still not set timetables for achieving the benchmarks that do exist, although they are supposed to do so by the end of this year.
"This is very much a work in progress and we have a long way to go," said McMillan.
In the Commons, NDP health critic Penny Priddy flayed the government over its unfulfilled election promise to establish wait time guarantees in the five priority areas.
The guarantees were supposed to ensure patients could go to another jurisdiction at government expense if timely care was not available at home.
Health Minister Tony Clement insisted the promise is on its way to being achieved, saying he recently announced care guarantees for prenatal care and diabetes among aboriginals.
"We're protecting Canadians, we're moving forward," said Clement.
However, the election promise was for guarantees that would be available to all Canadians.
"This is not what Canadians had in mind when they were promised wait times across the board," said Priddy.
Erik Waddell, press secretary to Clement, said the government still intends to meet its promise of national care guarantees.
"A benchmark without a guarantee is just an empty promise. We are working with the provinces to make progress on this promise, on implementing the guarantees across the country."
Provinces have indicated they will not introduce care guarantees without additional money from Ottawa.
