Your feet carry you through every day of your life, and the moment one of them turns against you, the whole day shrinks to fit what it will allow. A bunion that has deformed the forefoot, an ankle worn down to bone, a heel that gave way and never came back. These get triaged as minor. They are not minor to you.
Foot and ankle surgery sits inside orthopedics, which carries one of the two longest waits in Canadian medicine. And within that queue, a bunion or a worn ankle gets treated as near-cosmetic and quietly sinks to the bottom, behind every hip and knee.
The median wait Canadian physicians report from family doctor referral to orthopedic treatment, the second longest of any specialty.*
No foot or ankle procedure appears among the benchmarks Canada reports against. Nobody counts this wait.*
Consultation within days, and surgery typically scheduled within weeks of it rather than nearly a year on.
*Fraser Institute, Waiting Your Turn 2025, a survey of Canadian physicians. The median reported wait from GP referral to orthopedic treatment was 48.6 weeks, the second longest of any specialty. Foot and ankle surgery is performed within orthopedics. The wait-time benchmarks Canada reports against cover hip replacement, knee replacement, cataract surgery, radiation therapy and hip fracture repair, and no foot or ankle procedure is among them. Waits vary widely by province. Individual ACCESS timelines depend on the procedure, your medical readiness and surgeon availability.
Most forefoot surgery, a bunion included, is day surgery: you fly in, it is done, and you fly home. The bigger operations, an ankle replacement or a fusion, ask for a night or two before you travel. Either way, the surgery happens here and the recovery happens where you live.
Arrival
A flight, and a car we arrange. Our centres are close to major airports, so the door-to-door part is easy.
Surgery
Bunion and most forefoot surgery is day surgery. An ankle replacement or fusion is a bigger procedure with a short inpatient stay.
Before You Fly
You are checked, fitted with a boot or cast, and shown how to manage crutches before anyone puts you on a plane.
Home
Your cast changes, X-rays and physiotherapy are arranged where you live, with your surgeon reachable throughout.
The honest caveat about feet: you cannot rush weight-bearing. Foot and ankle recoveries depend on keeping weight off the foot for a set period while bone or tendon heals, so this is not a cluster where you are back on your feet the next day. What ACCESS does is make the surgery itself a short, well-organised trip, and then coordinate the weeks of boot, crutches and physiotherapy that follow, at home, so the distance never becomes the problem. Your coordinator will tell you exactly how long you will be off the foot before you commit to anything.
The foot and ankle is twenty-six bones, thirty-odd joints and a web of tendons, and it is unforgiving of a surgeon who dabbles. Everything here is handled by a fellowship-trained foot and ankle surgeon.
The front of the foot takes the load and shows the wear. A bunion is not just a bump; it is the visible end of a deformity that spreads across the whole forefoot, crowding and bending the other toes as it goes.
Explore Bunion SurgeryAn arthritic ankle is a particular kind of misery: every single step hurts, because there is no way to walk without loading it. When it reaches the end of the road, there is a real and consequential decision to make about how to fix it.
Explore Ankle ReplacementThe tendons of the foot and ankle are long, hard-working and, once damaged, unforgiving of delay. The Achilles is the headline, and it is the clearest example on this whole site of a wait that changes the operation itself.
Explore Achilles RepairFrom a day-case bunion correction to a major ankle reconstruction, each performed by a fellowship-trained foot and ankle surgeon, and each explained with the honest trade-offs most patients never hear.
Correcting the deformity, not just shaving the bump. Modern minimally invasive correction is a world away from the bunion surgery of a generation ago.
Learn MoreFor an ankle worn out by arthritis. There is a genuine, life-shaping choice here between replacing the joint and fusing it, and it is rarely explained.
Learn MoreFor a ruptured Achilles. The one procedure here where waiting does not just delay the operation, it changes it into a much bigger one.
Learn MoreFoot and ankle surgeons handle far more than three procedures: hammer toes, big toe arthritis, flatfoot, tendon and cartilage work. Tell us what hurts.
Ask a CoordinatorBecause the public system files these problems under "elective" and leaves them there, and because for two of them, the worn ankle and the ruptured Achilles, waiting quietly makes the eventual operation bigger.
And because not every sore foot needs a surgeon. A great deal of foot pain responds to the right footwear, an orthotic, an injection or physiotherapy, and an honest foot and ankle surgeon reaches for those first. Bunions that do not hurt do not need correcting for the way they look. Our surgeon will tell you when the answer is a better shoe rather than an operating room, and the spoke pages say so plainly.
Orthopedics carries one of the two longest waits in the country, and foot problems sit at the very back of it. Ours is weeks.
Royal College certified, with a UBC fellowship in foot and ankle surgery. This is a field where sub-specialty focus genuinely shows.
Minimally invasive bunion correction and modern ankle replacement are genuinely different from what these operations used to be.
Foot recoveries mean weeks in a boot. We arrange the cast changes, the X-rays and the physiotherapy near you.
From your first message to your recovery at home, one coordinator manages the entire journey.
Tell us what hurts and share any X-rays or scans you have. No referral is required to begin.
Meet a fellowship-trained foot and ankle surgeon by secure video, typically within days, and get a straight answer.
At an accredited centre, as day surgery or a short stay. We arrange the flights, the hotel and the car.
Cast changes, X-rays and physiotherapy are arranged where you live, with your surgical team involved throughout.
Straight answers to what patients ask us most about private foot and ankle surgery in Canada.
There is no single price, and this cluster has the widest range of any: a day-case bunion correction and a total ankle replacement are entirely different undertakings. Cost is shaped by the procedure, the implants or hardware used, whether it is day surgery or an inpatient stay, and the facility. Rather than post a range that may not apply to you, ACCESS reviews your imaging and history and gives you one written, all-inclusive quote covering the surgeon, anesthesia, the facility, any implants and our coordination, before anything is booked. Financing options and the CRA Medical Expense Tax Credit may also apply.
Long, on two counts. Foot and ankle surgery sits within orthopedics, which the Fraser Institute's 2025 survey of Canadian physicians put at a median 48.6 weeks from family doctor referral to treatment, the second longest wait of any specialty. And within that queue, foot problems are treated as low priority, behind the hips and knees, because they are wrongly seen as near-cosmetic. No foot or ankle procedure is among the benchmarks Canada reports against, so nobody is accountable for how long you wait. For a worn ankle or a ruptured Achilles, that wait is not just uncomfortable, it can change the operation you eventually need.
Yes, and foot surgery is a field where a lot can be done without an operation. A great deal of foot pain responds to the right footwear, an orthotic, an injection or a course of physiotherapy, and those come first. A bunion that does not cause pain does not need surgery just because of how it looks, and we will not correct one for cosmetic reasons. Big toe arthritis can often be managed for years without surgery. Our surgeon applies those judgements honestly, and each spoke page says plainly when the answer is a better shoe rather than a scalpel.
Longer than for a hand, and that is the honest headline for this cluster. Foot and ankle recoveries depend on keeping weight off the foot while bone or tendon heals, so a period in a boot or cast, often on crutches, is unavoidable. A minimally invasive bunion may let you walk in a special stiff-soled shoe fairly early; an ankle replacement, a fusion or an Achilles repair keeps you off the foot for weeks. This is not a same-day-back-to-normal cluster, and we would rather you planned properly than were caught out. Your surgeon will tell you exactly how long, for your specific operation, before you commit.
Yes, and this is exactly the sort of thing a coordinator exists to manage. The surgery itself is a short trip; the long part, the weeks in a boot, happens at home. Before you fly back, you are fitted with your boot or cast, taught to manage crutches, and given clear instructions. We book you an aisle seat, arrange the cars at both ends, and make sure you are not navigating an airport on crutches without help. Then your cast changes, X-rays and physiotherapy are all arranged near where you live. The distance is a logistics problem, and logistics is what we do.
Yes. Travelling within Canada for privately funded surgery is a legitimate, well-established pathway, and coordinating it is exactly what ACCESS does. For a day-case bunion the trip is short; for an ankle replacement or Achilles repair we plan a short stay before you travel and then coordinate the boot, the crutches and the physiotherapy at home. We arrange the consultation, the surgery date, the flights, the accommodation and the cars, and keep your surgical team reachable throughout your recovery.
Speak with a care coordinator about your foot or ankle, and whether it needs surgery or something simpler. No referral needed, no obligation, and a clear quote before anything is booked.
