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A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says wait times for several procedures outsourced to for-profit clinics in Ontario have increased, while the government disputes the findings and cites record funding.
A new study released Monday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning think tank, found that wait times for several medical procedures outsourced to for-profit clinics in Ontario have generally increased rather than decreased.
Ontario Wait Times Rise Despite Outsourcing
The study relied on publicly available information and data obtained through four Freedom of Information requests. It concluded that since Ontario began outsourcing more key procedures, wait times for medical imaging services and surgeries are actually going up. The report states that median wait times for eight of 12 priority procedures increased between 2017 and 2025, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. These procedures include ones outsourced to private clinics, such as cataract surgeries and MRI scans.
For cataract surgeries, median wait times increased from 67 days in 2017 to 68 days in 2025. The report notes this challenges the government rationale that greater outsourcing of cataract surgeries would significantly reduce wait times. For MRI scans, wait times increased from 35 days to 47 days, a 35 per cent increase. CT scan wait times remained unchanged at six days.
However, wait times for the 90th percentile of patients increased by 95 per cent for MRI and 231 per cent for CT scans. The report calls this a red flag for health system performance, noting that increasingly long waits for many patients beyond the middle of the wait-time distribution are concerning.
The study found that the volume of publicly funded procedures and medical imaging services at for-profit facilities, known as Integrated Community Health Services Centres, increased by about 117 per cent between 2017 and 2024-25. In 2024-25, about $674 million went to for-profit surgical and medical imaging in Ontario, an increase of 48 per cent from 2017-18. There are 918 such centres in the province, up from about 902 in 2023.
For Profit Facilities Expand Procedures
Most services provided at these centres include medical imaging, such as diagnostic ultrasounds. The Ministry of Health has contracted eight clinics to perform plastic surgeries, six to perform eye surgeries, and seven to carry out CT and MRI scans. Don Mills Surgical Unit and Shouldice Hospital, two private hospitals, perform multiple surgical procedures and hernia repairs.
The report states that across Canada, outsourced surgeries and medical imaging are consistently found to be more expensive than the same surgeries performed at public hospitals. Cataract surgeries at Don Mills Surgical Unit were more than twice as expensive as those in public hospitals, while knee arthroscopies were two to three times more expensive.
Andrew Longhurst, the study author, wrote that since the provincial government has prioritized for-profit surgical and diagnostic delivery over the expansion of public sector capacity and improvement, wait times are generally increasing in Ontario. The report says surgical and diagnostic privatization is becoming more deeply entrenched since the 2023 passage of Bill 60, dubbed the Your Health Act, which enabled private clinics to conduct more OHIP-covered surgeries to reduce the surgical backlog.
Public Hospitals Face Funding Shortfalls
It adds that the growth of this for-profit industry, benefiting from substantial public funding, comes as public hospitals face funding austerity. The report notes that Ontario's Financial Accountability Office estimates that just to maintain current service levels, $6.4 billion in new health care spending is required in 2026-27. The 2026 budget adds $3.4 billion in additional spending, leaving the system short by $3 billion in this fiscal year.
Costs in the hospital sector have been increasing by about six per cent per year due to population growth, aging, and inflation, according to the Ontario Hospital Association. In a statement, Lily Barnes, a spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, called claims made in the report misguided. She said Ontario is proud to have one of the largest publicly funded health-care systems in the world, with some of the shortest wait times for critical surgeries in the country.
Government Defends Health Care Spending
She added that the government continues to provide record funding, investing over $101 billion in health care this year alone, a 64 per cent increase from 2018. Barnes said that for the third year in a row, hospital funding has increased by a record four per cent, bringing the total increase to over 50 per cent since 2018.
This historic funding has directly supported hospitals in reducing surgical backlogs, resulting in a 4,260 per cent increase in publicly funded same-day hip surgeries and a 5,840 per cent increase in same-day knee surgeries, she said. She added that the province has taken bold action to expand publicly funded procedures to community surgical diagnostic centres to connect more people to life-changing procedures sooner.
According to Barnes, the expansion has resulted in 32,000 more people each year receiving cataract procedures, 1.2 million more people being connected to MRI or CT scans per year, and 20,000 additional joint surgeries per year. She said the government will continue to deliver more connected, convenient care in every corner of the province, always ensuring that people are accessing the health care they need with their OHIP card, never their credit card.
CTVToronto 
CTVNews:Wait times increasing for some medical procedures outsourced to for-profit clinics in Ontario: reportThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Ontario Health Care For-Profit Clinics Wait Times Cataract Surgery MRI Scans
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