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Over 91,000 British Columbians are now on the province’s record-setting waitlist for medically necessary surgeries.

According to benchmarks created by the government, almost half of them have already waited “too long”. And they are still waiting.

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Unfortunately, this is not news to most of us. We all have family, friends and neighbours who have had to wait far too long for important and sometimes life-saving procedures.

To be fair, our provincial government has made sizeable budgetary commitments.

In this year’s fiscal budget, nearly $23 billion of our tax dollars have been earmarked for health care, including an extra $100 million to improve surgical wait numbers.

That’s on top of the extra $75 million allocated last year in an effort to improve surgical waitlists and wait times.

While the money has been there, the results for B.C. patients are troubling.

Over the last year-and-a-half, the number of people waiting for surgery has increased from 85,468 to 91,150. This means that the waitlist for surgery has grown to be equal to the entire population of our provincial capital.