VICTORIA, B.C.: The B.C. NDP has had a decade to fix the province’s specialist waitlist crisis. Instead, waitlists grew by 10 per cent between 2024 and 2025. Patients with urgent conditions are waiting four weeks to be seen. Non-urgent cases wait up to ten months, and in some cases, years. The 2025 Specialist Waitlist Survey from Consultant Specialists of B.C. and Doctors of B.C. confirms what patients across this province already know: the NDP is failing them, and it is getting worse.
Dr. Anna Kindy, MLA for North Island and Critic for Health, says that the specialist waitlist crisis is the predictable result of years of NDP mismanagement. “Seventy per cent of specialists say their waitlists grew last year. This government is failing patients and specialists alike, and it is getting worse every single year.”
Kindy says that the NDP’s failure to collect basic data exposes just how little this government understands the crisis it created. “On top of everything, this government is not tracking the wait time to see nonsurgical speciality. How can you resource healthcare without proper data?”
“There are over 1.3 million British Columbians waiting to see a specialist physician and under this government, 4,620 British Columbians died on a waitlist. The NDP calls that a health care system,” said Kindy.
The crisis is not just failing patients. It is breaking the workforce too. The vast majority of specialists report that waitlists are contributing to burnout, and many say they cannot provide patients with the care they need. More than a third have partially closed or are considering closing their practice to new referrals.
Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Leader of the Conservative Party of B.C., says the B.C. Conservatives are committed to doing what the NDP has refused to do. “A government that cannot keep its citizens alive while they wait for basic medical care has no business running a health care system. This is the NDP’s record after a decade in power. A B.C. Conservative government will train, recruit and retain enough specialists to provide timely care. We will listen to what the frontline healthcare providers are saying and make sure that British Columbian gets care when and where they need it.”
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