A Comparison of Surgical Rates in Canada and in England and Wales

Abstract

Comparison showed that surgical rates in Canada (1968) were 1.8 times greater for men and 1.6 times greater for women than in England and Wales (1967). The age-standardized and sex-specific rates for diverse elective and discretionary operations — such as tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, hemorrhoidectomy and inguinal herniorrhaphy —were two or more times higher in Canada than in England and Wales. In elderly people, mortality from diseases of the gallbladder was twice as high in Canada as in England and Wales, but the Canadian cholecystectomy rate was more than five times greater.