Cutting red tape could free up the equivalent of 9,000 doctors, new report finds – CTV
January 26, 2026
Canadian doctors are spending so much time on paperwork that cutting unnecessary administrative tasks could effectively add thousands of physicians to the health-care system, according to a new report.
Published this month, the report, “Losing doctors to desk work,” from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and the Canadian Medical Association, estimates physicians lose about 20 million hours each year to red tape.
That workload is equivalent to roughly 9,000 full-time doctors – time that could otherwise be spent seeing patients or easing pressure on an already-strained system, the report said.
For individual physicians, the burden adds up to as much as nearly 200 hours a year, more than a full month of work. The findings were released as part of CFIB’s annual Red Tape Awareness week, which highlights how administrative inefficiencies affect key sectors.
