Imagine waiting six months with stomach pain — waking up every morning wondering if today will finally be the day you get answers. It’s exhausting. It’s scary. And it happens to millions of people every year.
You’ve been dealing with persistent stomach pain for weeks. Your GP finally agrees you need a gastroscopy. Then comes the punchline: “The waiting list is about 4 to 6 months.”
This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s the daily reality for millions of patients across Canada, the UK, France, and the United States. And while you wait, your symptoms don’t. The burning, the reflux, the unexplained weight loss — they carry on, and so does the anxiety of not knowing what’s wrong.
The Waiting Game by the Numbers
Let’s look at what “waiting” actually means in each country.
Canada consistently posts the longest specialist-to-treatment waits in the developed world. The Fraser Institute’s 2025 report, Waiting Your Turn, found the median wait time from GP referral to specialist treatment hit 28.6 weeks — the second-longest ever recorded [1]. Even in Ontario, the best-performing province, patients still waited a median of 19.2 weeks. Gastroenterology procedures like gastroscopy sit squarely inside these numbers. In British Columbia and Quebec, total waits exceed 32 weeks. That’s over half a year from “you need this test” to “you’re getting this test.”
United Kingdom — The NHS’s own constitutional standard — 99% of patients should wait less than six weeks for a diagnostic test — hasn’t been met since 2017. Here’s the reality on the ground in 2025 [2][3]:
24% of patients waiting for diagnostic tests had already been waiting six weeks or more66,693 patients were on the gastroscopy waiting list in England alone — a 15.7% increase year-on-yearIn Scotland, only 58.5% of endoscopy patients were seen within the six-week targetFrance — While France’s healthcare system is often praised, wait times for specialist procedures remain a significant issue. A 2024 survey by the French hospital federation (FHF) indicated that access to gastroenterology consultations and endoscopic procedures had deteriorated, with some regions reporting delays of 8–12 weeks for non-urgent gastroscopy [4]. For patients outside major metropolitan areas, the wait can stretch considerably longer.
United States — The American system is less about wait lists and more about access barriers. If you’re insured, you might get a gastroscopy within 2–4 weeks. If you’re uninsured, underinsured, or between jobs, the wait can be indefinite. A 2024 Commonwealth Fund survey found that 28% of working-age Americans skipped needed diagnostic tests due to cost [5]. The US doesn’t have a formal “queue” — but it has a gatekeeper called money, and it’s just as effective at keeping people waiting.
Why the Waits Are So Long — and Getting Longer
The root causes aren’t mysterious. Aging populations. A global shortage of gastroenterologists. A post-pandemic backlog that most systems still haven’t cleared. In Canada and the UK, the single-payer model — while equitable in principle — creates a supply ceiling that can’t flex to meet demand spikes. When every gastroscopy slot is filled for months, the system simply makes you wait.
The human cost is harder to measure but impossible to ignore. Patients waiting for diagnostic gastroscopy report worsening symptoms, increased anxiety, and — in the worst cases — disease progression that could have been caught earlier. Stomach cancer, for example, has a five-year survival rate of over 90% when caught early. That number drops dramatically with later-stage diagnosis [6]. A month of waiting isn’t just inconvenient. It can be consequential.
A Different Kind of Math: Days Instead of Months
Here’s what most patients don’t know: there’s another path.
Through myMedVia, patients from Canada, the UK, France, and the US can schedule a gastroscopy at a JCI-accredited international hospital in China — and have the procedure completed within 3 to 7 days of initial contact. Not weeks. Not months. Days.
Related Articles
Learn more about [our fast-track endoscopy program](https://mymedvia.com/endoscopy-gastroscopy-in-china/how-mymedvia-fast-track-access-works-for-endoscopy-patients/) and [endoscopy costs compared](https://mymedvia.com/endoscopy-gastroscopy-in-china/endoscopy-cost-comparison-2026-uk-canada-us-vs-china-complete-data/).
How is this possible? China’s hospital infrastructure is large, modern, and underutilized for international patients. The country has over 60 JCI-accredited hospitals — the same gold standard used by leading hospitals in the US and Europe [7]. Many of these facilities have dedicated international patient centers with English-speaking staff, Western-trained gastroenterologists, and state-of-the-art endoscopy suites. The capacity exists. The wait lists don’t.
myMedVia’s Fast-track Access program (starting at $300) handles the logistics: finding the right hospital, scheduling the procedure around your travel dates, arranging translation support, and coordinating follow-up. For patients who want end-to-end support — airport pickup, hotel booking, a personal care coordinator — the Full Concierge program (starting at $1,000) makes the experience seamless.
What This Means for You
If you’re reading this and you’re currently waiting — or you’ve just been told you need a gastroscopy and the earliest appointment is months away — you have options.
The most important thing to understand is that waiting isn’t your only choice. Medical travel, once the domain of complex surgeries and wealthy patients, is now accessible for diagnostic procedures like gastroscopy. The infrastructure is there. The quality is there. And the speed — measured in days, not months — changes everything.
Because every day you wait is a day you spend without answers. And answers are the first step toward getting better.
Next Steps
[Contact myMedVia]
myMedVia — Fast. Affordable. Certain.
References
Fraser Institute. “Waiting Your Turn: Wait Times for Health Care in Canada.” Fraser Institute, 2025.NHS England. “Diagnostic Waiting Times and Activity Report.” NHS England, August 2025.Public Health Scotland. “Waits for Key Diagnostic Tests.” Public Health Scotland, March 2025.Fédération Hospitalière de France (FHF). “Enquête sur les délais d’attente.” FHF, 2024.The Commonwealth Fund. “Health Care Affordability Survey.” The Commonwealth Fund, 2024.American Cancer Society. “Stomach Cancer Survival Rates.” American Cancer Society, 2025.Joint Commission International (JCI). “Accredited Organizations Directory.” JCI, 2026.