Orthopedic surgery wait times in Canada are only partly counted. The national figures cover two planned operations, hip and knee replacement, and they leave the rest of orthopedics to each province. This page sets out what the official numbers say, province by province. It also sets out what they quietly leave out.
If you are weighing private orthopedic surgery in Canada, start with the public numbers. They are the honest baseline. And they explain why so many people with a worn hip, a torn ligament or a failing shoulder end up asking about other options.
Orthopedic surgery wait times: the short answer
Canada sets one benchmark for hip and knee replacement. It is 26 weeks, or 182 days. In the April to September 2025 reporting period, 69.2 percent of Canadian hip patients had surgery inside that window. For knee patients the figure was 62.8 percent.
But the spread between provinces is wide. Ontario treated 83.8 percent of hip patients and 82.1 percent of knee patients on time. Prince Edward Island managed 30.5 percent and 11.7 percent.
And there are two catches. The national clock starts late, after you have already seen a surgeon. It also covers only those two operations. For shoulder, ACL and rotator cuff surgery, there is no national number at all.
What orthopedic wait time data measures, and what it misses
Orthopedic surgery wait times are really two queues, and most people asking about them only know about one. The two run one after the other, and each one has its own clock.
Wait 1: referral to the first surgeon visit
Wait 1 starts when the surgeon's office receives your referral. It ends at your first appointment with that surgeon. Nobody books an operation before that visit, so for most people this is the first long queue.
The national figures do not include Wait 1. So the months you spend waiting for a first consultation sit outside every number in the CIHI tables below. Ontario is one of the few provinces that publishes this wait, and we cover it further down.
Wait 2: the decision to operate, then the operation
Wait 2 starts on the day you and the surgeon agree to operate, and you are ready to go ahead. It ends on the day of surgery. The Canadian Institute for Health Information, known as CIHI, defines the hip and knee waits this way in its 2025 methodology notes.
CIHI also drops the days when a patient was unavailable. So a date you postponed for your own reasons can vanish from the record, even though you lived through it.
Which orthopedic operations have a national benchmark
CIHI reports on a short list of priority procedures. Among planned orthopedic operations, only hip replacement and knee replacement appear on it. Hip fracture repair is on the list as well, but that is urgent surgery after a fall rather than a planned operation.
Shoulder replacement, rotator cuff repair, ACL reconstruction, hip arthroscopy and foot and ankle surgery appear nowhere in CIHI's 2008 to 2025 data tables. So there is no national target for them. There is also no national figure to set one province against another.
That does not mean those waits are short. It means nobody has to answer for them in a national report. In short, some of the orthopedic operations Canadians wait for go largely uncounted.
Hip and knee replacement wait times by province, April to September 2025
The tables below come from CIHI's own 2008 to 2025 data tables, which we opened and read ourselves. The latest data year in that workbook is labelled 2025. According to CIHI, it covers procedures completed from April to September 2025.
Share treated on time, and the median wait
| Province | Hip: treated within 26 weeks | Hip: median wait, days | Knee: treated within 26 weeks | Knee: median wait, days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 69.2 percent | 120 | 62.8 percent | 146 |
| Ontario | 83.8 percent | 76 | 82.1 percent | 81 |
| Nova Scotia | 77.0 percent | 103 | 69.0 percent | 129 |
| British Columbia | 64.1 percent | 131 | 57.2 percent | 152 |
| Alberta | 63.0 percent | 134 | 52.5 percent | 172 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 55.0 percent | 159 | 37.0 percent | 298 |
| Quebec | 54.0 percent | 169 | 42.0 percent | 217 |
| Saskatchewan | 51.8 percent | 176 | 42.8 percent | 210 |
| New Brunswick | 51.0 percent | 179 | 49.0 percent | 186 |
| Manitoba | 47.0 percent | 193 | 31.0 percent | 286 |
| Prince Edward Island | 30.5 percent | 273 | 11.7 percent | 424 |
The rows run from the highest share of hip patients treated on time to the lowest. We give each share to one decimal place, as CIHI does, and we round the national day figures to whole days.
The slow end of the queue, and how many cases each figure rests on
| Province | Hip: 1 in 10 waited at least, days | Knee: 1 in 10 waited at least, days | Hip cases | Knee cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 321 | 361 | 28,463 | 45,459 |
| Ontario | 230 | 244 | 11,952 | 19,629 |
| Nova Scotia | 289 | 374 | 966 | 1,327 |
| British Columbia | 356 | 389 | 4,365 | 6,425 |
| Alberta | 406 | 467 | 2,981 | 4,793 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 567 | 735 | 341 | 628 |
| Quebec | 377 | 429 | 4,790 | 7,420 |
| Saskatchewan | 450 | 449 | 983 | 1,560 |
| New Brunswick | 397 | 399 | 761 | 1,229 |
| Manitoba | 448 | 607 | 1,183 | 2,226 |
| Prince Edward Island | 515 | 806 | 141 | 222 |
The three territories do not appear in this dataset. That is not a low score. It means no hip or knee figure exists for them in the national tables.
How to read the tables, and where the samples are small
The median is the middle of the queue. Half of patients waited less than that figure, and half waited more. It is not an average, so a handful of very long waits cannot drag it.
The 1 in 10 column is the 90th percentile. One patient in ten waited at least that long. It describes the bad end of the queue, and most guides skip it. In Quebec, for example, the median knee wait sat at 217 days, while 1 in 10 waited 429 days or more.
Now look at the case counts. Prince Edward Island reported 141 hip and 222 knee replacements in six months. Newfoundland and Labrador reported 341 hip replacements. With numbers that small, a few unusual cases can move the result a long way from one period to the next.
So read the small provinces as a signal rather than a precise measure. Ontario's figures rest on more than 31,000 joint replacements, and they are far more stable as a result.
Orthopedic surgeon wait times in Ontario
Ontario publishes more orthopedic surgery wait times than the national tables do. Ontario Health runs a public surgical wait times tool that reports both clocks, Wait 1 and Wait 2. It covers a range of orthopedic operations, not just joint replacement, and it reports them by hospital too.
We checked it in November 2026. The latest provincial figures covered adult patients in August 2026, and April to June 2026 for ankle surgery. Ontario sorts patients into priority levels, and each level has its own target. For the least urgent level, which holds most patients, the target is 182 days for each wait. The figures below combine every priority level.
| Operation | Wait 1: seen within target | Wait 1: 9 in 10 seen within, days | Wait 2: treated within target | Wait 2: 9 in 10 treated within, days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hip replacement | 88 percent | 170 | 80 percent | 211 |
| Knee replacement | 86 percent | 197 | 80 percent | 246 |
| Shoulder, all procedures | 81 percent | 216 | 80 percent | 212 |
| Knee arthroscopy | 87 percent | 160 | 92 percent | 134 |
| Foot, all procedures | 64 percent | 388 | 88 percent | 178 |
| Ankle, April to June 2026 | 78 percent | 287 | 88 percent | 176 |
The 9 in 10 columns work like the 1 in 10 column above, from the other side. Nine patients in ten finished that stage within the number shown, so one in ten took longer.
What the Ontario numbers show
First, look at both waits together. For knee replacement, 1 in 10 Ontario patients waited at least 197 days to see the surgeon. Then 1 in 10 waited at least 246 days from decision to surgery. Those are not always the same patients, so you cannot simply add the two. But a patient unlucky at both stages could wait well over a year in total.
Second, foot surgery stands out. Only 64 percent of patients saw the surgeon within target, and 1 in 10 waited at least 388 days just for that first visit.
Third, Ontario does count shoulder surgery, even though the national tables do not. So the gap in shoulder data is national, not universal. Even so, most provinces leave it out.
Why orthopedic surgery wait times matter clinically
Most bone and joint surgery is not an emergency, and triage is right to put cancer and trauma first. But a wait is not harmless either. The research on this is careful, and so are we.
A Dutch study followed 161 patients waiting for hip replacement. Their hip scores got significantly worse during the wait. The study found no direct effect of waiting time on the final result. But patients who reached surgery later in the disease did not catch up with those who went in with a better hip.
A large English cohort study of hip replacement found that longer waits went with worse scores before surgery. That gap was still there 12 months after the operation.
The shoulder tells a similar story. In a study of 38 rotator cuff repairs, muscle wasting and fatty change in the cuff did not reverse after repair, and both predicted a poorer result. So time can matter for a torn cuff, although your surgeon is the one to judge how much in your case.
Waiting can also cost people their jobs. A McMaster University survey of 50 patients waiting for ACL reconstruction found that those waiting more than 182 days lost their job, or had it significantly changed, more often than those who waited less.
None of this means every wait causes harm. Some patients do well with physiotherapy and never need an operation. And an association is not proof of cause.
How we compiled this, and where it falls short
We took every national figure straight from the CIHI workbook. We read every Ontario figure from Ontario Health's own tool. We took no number from a news story or a secondary summary.
Three limits matter. First, the CIHI and Ontario figures cover different periods, so they do not line up exactly. Second, the CIHI tables measure Wait 2 only. Third, these are percentiles rather than averages, so a median of 146 days means half of patients waited longer.
So read any single figure as a signal. It is not a promise about your own case, and no honest page can make one.
What to do about a long orthopedic surgery wait
Ask four questions when someone quotes a wait at you
- Which clock does the number measure, Wait 1 or Wait 2?
- What dates does the data cover?
- Is it a median, an average or a 90th percentile?
- Where can I read the source myself?
If nobody can answer the last one, treat the number as a guess.
Keep the public route moving
Check that your referral actually arrived, because referrals do go astray. Ask the clinic whether it keeps a cancellation list, and say yes if a short notice date comes up. Go back to your doctor if your symptoms change. And ask about treatment that involves no operation, because for some people that is the right answer.
Consider the cross-province pathway
Orthopedic surgery wait times in your own province do not have to set your timeline. The rule on privately paid surgery turns on your home province. You cannot pay privately for an insured service in the province that insures you. But you may travel to another province and pay for it there. Our article on whether private surgery is legal in Canada explains the rule in every province.
So an Ontario patient can have surgery at a private surgical centre in Montreal. Patients from every other province can go to Panacea Clinic in Waterdown, Ontario, or to Montreal. It is a legitimate right, and it is how private surgery in Canada works for patients in every province. There is nothing to hide and nothing to work around.
ACCESS coordinates that journey rather than selling surgery. The surgeon operates, and the facility provides the operating room. We arrange the consultation, the imaging, the date, the travel and the follow up. Our hip replacement page and knee replacement page explain those operations. We also coordinate ACL reconstruction and rotator cuff repair.
A good surgeon will also tell you when surgery is not the answer, and that result is worth having too. If you want a straight answer about your own situation, talk to a coordinator.
Orthopedic surgery wait times: common questions
How long is the wait for orthopedic surgery in Canada?
It depends on the operation and the province. For hip replacement, half of Canadian patients waited 120 days or less from the decision to operate, in April to September 2025. For knee replacement, the median was 146 days. For shoulder, ACL and rotator cuff surgery, no national figure exists.
How long is the wait to see an orthopedic surgeon in Ontario?
It varies by operation. In August 2026, 9 in 10 adult hip replacement patients saw the surgeon within 170 days. For knee replacement it was 197 days, and for shoulder surgery 216 days. Ontario Health publishes these figures, by hospital as well.
Which province has the shortest hip and knee replacement waits?
Ontario, on every measure in the April to September 2025 CIHI data. Its median wait was 76 days for a hip and 81 days for a knee. Prince Edward Island had the longest, at 273 and 424 days.
Why is there no national wait time for shoulder or ACL surgery?
Canada chose a short benchmark list years ago, and among planned orthopedic operations it holds only hip and knee replacement. So the national reporting tool has no shoulder, ACL or rotator cuff figure. Some provinces, Ontario included, publish them anyway.
Does the official wait include the wait to see the surgeon?
Not in the national figures. CIHI starts the clock when you and the surgeon agree to operate. So the wait for your first consultation comes on top of it. Ontario publishes that first wait separately.
Can I have orthopedic surgery in another province?
Yes. The rule on privately paid surgery turns on your home province, not the surgeon's. So a patient who cannot pay privately at home can travel one province over and pay there. A coordinator can explain how that applies to you.
Last reviewed, and permission to cite
We last reviewed this page on 4 November 2026. We check every source link and figure at least twice a year. When CIHI releases a newer data year, we will update the tables and say when the change arrived.
Journalists, researchers and clinicians are welcome to cite this page or reuse the provincial tables, with a link back. If you spot an error or a source we missed, tell us and we will correct it.