Surgery backlog at SickKids rose by 50 per cent during pandemic

The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto is seen in this undated file photo. (CTV News Toronto)

The number of kids waiting to be operated on at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children has increased since the start of the pandemic.

Roughly 5,600 children, most of whom are under 10 years old, are currently waiting for their turn to get into an operating room at SickKids.

Back in March 2020, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 3,800 children were in the queue for surgery.

A spokesperson for SickKids was unable to speak with CP24 today, however they did confirm the above numbers.

They also said that 61 per cent of scheduled surgeries at SickKids are now falling outside the recommended clinical window amid the backlog. That is compared to 35 per cent pre-pandemic.

Speaking with reporters during a media availability Friday morning, re-elected Premier Doug Ford said that children are “obviously” a priority when it comes to backlogged surgeries while noting that “other areas are a priority too.”

Ford then said off-hand that he believes the PC’s have committed to an investment of about $180 million to address the backlog in surgeries across the province.

“We’re gonna put money into that to make sure that we clear up the backlogged surgeries. And, hopefully by the end of this year coming we’ll have a good chunk of them, if not all of them, cleared up, so I’m told from the ministry,” he said. “We need to make sure that our operating rooms are going around the clock, MRIs are going around the clock, when possible.”

The Ontario Medical Association has previously estimated that the province’s surgical backlog stands at more than a million procedures.

It has called on the province to fund a new model of outpatient health-care centres to help tackle the backlog.