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Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada
When we last spoke to Nadeem Esmail in October 2007 regarding a report on efforts to reduce hospital wait times in Canada, the results were less than stellar.: wait times remained a major problem and barrier for prompt care. The Fraser Institute’s annual report on hospital wait times, the 19th edition of Waiting Your Turn:…
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Health Council of Canada's report on health care
Health Council of Canada’s latest report to Canadians, Rekindling Reform: Health Care Renewal in Canada, 2003 to 2008 released this week reviews governments’ efforts to fulfill promises and intentions for health reform that began in 2003 with the 2003 Accord on Health Care Renewal. What are the results of the billions of dollars committed to…
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France's health care system
While politicians are reluctant to discuss changes to improve our health care system that include private services, other countries have implemented systems that would be considered heresy in Canada. One such country is France. The Montreal Economic Institute has published an Economic Note on France’s health care system following the Castonguay report on Quebec’s system…
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National Health Expenditure Trends, 1975-2007
Where is Canada’s health care spending heading? What conclusions can be drawn when we extrapolate those costs into the future? These among many other findings were evaluated in a report released November 12, 2007 by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released its flagship annual report, National Health Expenditure Trends, 1975-2007. In 2007, health…
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President of the CMA, Dr. Brian Day
Health care reform especially as it applies to private and public provision is a topic that evokes strong sentiments, passionate discourse, arguments and unfortunately personal attacks, sometime quite vicious and malevolent. No stranger to being on the receiving end of the vitriol, the new president of the CMA is clear, we must ensure that Canadians…
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CMA president discusses Medicare Plus
This week, the CMA issued a proposal to help correct some of the problems in our health care system. The plan entitled Medicare Plus envisions cooperation between public and private providers of health care services to better serve the needs of Canadians. Predictably, the bipolar nature of the debate has elicited strong statements on both…
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The Canadian Association for People-Centred Health Patient-Centred Health (PCH) Challenge
The Canadian Association for People-Centred Health, (CAPCH) is a grassroots organization dedicated to finding a way for people to have a say in health care reform. They have sponsored a Patient-Centred Health (PCH) Challenge. The challenge is a contest which is solicited ideas for health reform, all of which are intended to help make the…
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Access Delayed, Access Denied 2007 report
A caller to Sunday House Call recently enquired about the drug approval process and why there seems to be certain medications available in other countries but not in Canada? According to a report entitled Access Delayed, Access Denied published by The Fraser Institute, Brett Skinner, Director, Health, Pharmaceutical and Insurance Policy Research states that “the…
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Recommendations to ease emergency room overcrowding
Reports are surfacing of staff shortages in emergency rooms in smaller communities. There are backlogs of patients waiting in emergency rooms until they are admitted to a hospital ward acute care bed. It is a chain of events and circumstance stemming in part from a shortage of these acute care beds and the result is…