Canada's health care system gets a dismal rating...

[Army Guy]

Not sure what post that our health care system came up in , but here is a survey that places our nation at the very bottom of the list of 20 other western nations...Our health care system has been saying it is in crises mode for many years now, and still canadians believe that old myth that our healthcare system is one of the worlds best....Not the case....for the amount we spend on our health care we are getting very little in return. 

Opinion: Canada comes second last out of 20 countries in new health-care ranking

[SpankyMcFarland]

Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland are micro-countries compared to ours. They don’t have the challenge of delivering care across a subcontinent. The country I’d like us to match is Australia, similar in magnitude, politics and culture with an indigenous population that has special challenges. We’re falling behind them too. They have a mixed system of public and private care. 

[Barquentine]

3 hours ago, Army Guy said:

but here is a survey that places our nation at the very bottom of the list of 20 other western nations

It looks like that study is only about wait-times, not outcomes or quality of care. While it sucks to have to wait too long (I know from personal experience), and that definitely needs improvement, I've always found that the quality of health care is excellent here.

[Army Guy]

1 hour ago, Barquentine said:

It looks like that study is only about wait-times, not outcomes or quality of care. While it sucks to have to wait too long (I know from personal experience), and that definitely needs improvement, I've always found that the quality of health care is excellent here.

I think we have already mentioned outcomes in older posts, which was how many Canadians died while awaiting care or surgeries...Quality of care is 100 %, but was not mentioned, we lack in family doctors, nurses and other health care jobs, and yet we spend the 4th largest amount on health care and do not have the results compared to other western nations.  Even healthcare official's are calling it a crises.

4 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland are micro-countries compared to ours. They don’t have the challenge of delivering care across a subcontinent. The country I’d like us to match is Australia, similar in magnitude, politics and culture with an indigenous population that has special challenges. We’re falling behind them too. They have a mixed system of public and private care. 

Lets not forget health care is provincial which downsizes the land mass greatly....and for the amount we spend on health care we should be getting more.

[SpankyMcFarland]

1 hour ago, Army Guy said:

Let’s not forget health care is provincial which downsizes the land mass greatly....and for the amount we spend on health care we should be getting more.

 

It’s still a factor, though. 

 

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

Our health system is in trouble, no doubt, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Once you manage to see your GP and get past the teeming multitudes in the ER, good care still awaits. We have wonderful hospitals, eleven making a recent list of the world’s best 250 with TGH at number three which is really impressive. VGH is at number 144. 

https://rankings.newsweek.com/worlds-best-hospitals-2025
 

Many other excellent institutions didn’t make the list such as Foothills in Calgary. 

A relative of mine was at death’s door after a four year battle with lung cancer. He was put on the targeted therapy drug Tagrisso which costs a small fortune. The result was miraculous. He enjoyed five more years of good health with his family. I can remember when lung cancer was a diagnosis that gave you months to live. 

Our biggest challenges lie in the ER and primary care. Patients in the ER need to be immediately triaged. Of course, a big driver of the ER crisis is a lack of primary care. That has to be addressed with far more urgency. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we need to expand a separate for-profit private sector in Canadian health care. 

 

 

Edited Friday at 05:04 PM by SpankyMcFarland

[Michael Hardner]

41 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Our health system is in trouble, no doubt, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Once you manage to see your GP and get past the teeming multitudes in the ER, good care still awaits. We have wonderful hospitals, eleven making a recent list of the world’s best 250 with TGH at number three which is really impressive. VGH is at number 144. 

https://rankings.newsweek.com/worlds-best-hospitals-2025
 

Many other excellent institutions didn’t make the list such as Foothills in Calgary. 

A relative of mine was at death’s door after a four year battle with lung cancer. He was put on the targeted therapy drug Tagrisso which costs a small fortune. The result was miraculous. He enjoyed five more years of good health with his family. I can remember when lung cancer was a diagnosis that gave you months to live. 

Our biggest challenges lie in the ER and primary care. Patients in the ER need to be immediately triaged. Of course, a big driver of the ER crisis is a lack of primary care. That has to be addressed with far more urgency. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we need to expand a separate for-profit private sector in Canadian health care. 

 

 

Really they just have to get better at management. They do concentrate on cutting costs, which puts them ahead of the USA and all counts. All Americans like to do is spend spend spend. They're in for a big ouchie soon...

[CdnFox]

On 4/17/2025 at 12:42 PM, SpankyMcFarland said:

Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland are micro-countries compared to ours. They don’t have the challenge of delivering care across a subcontinent. The country I’d like us to match is Australia, similar in magnitude, politics and culture with an indigenous population that has special challenges. We’re falling behind them too. They have a mixed system of public and private care. 

Well if we are being honest they're simply is no comparison to Canada. While the population to land mass may look similar to Australia, the nature of the landmass combined with the distribution of the population presents some extremely unique problems for Canada

We need to be honest and take a look at our models. Most of the more successful Models have a mix of private and public and we need to consider how we might mimic places like France Australia England and other successful countries

But we also need to consider this business of federal funding and provincial delivery. Originally the idea was that the federal government would provide 50% of the health funding and the provinces the other 50% in order to make sure that poor provinces still have the funding per person necessary to deliver a similar quality of services across the country.

So the provinces gave up a bunch of their taxes and tax revenue and the federal government took it over with the idea that they would distribute it

But very quickly that went out the window and they just keep the money and spend it on their own programs and give back somewhere between 26 and 36% instead of the 50 depending on the government in power. Amusingly, since its inception it tends to be conservative governments that give the most, but even they never get anywhere close to 50%

I would be in favor of renegotiating the Canada Health act to include a guaranteed federal contribution rate. If we don't want 50%, then fine, pick a number that works and stop screwing around with it

I would then pass a law that the provinces have the right to do whatever they want for private healthcare provided that there is only one pair, the government. I would also include a list of exemptions for certain operations and procedures, especially ones that there are loopholes for now to make them legitimate and not gray area

The left has made a sacred cow out of healthcare and the idea of a single dollar being made by the private sector is considered to be sacrilege. The NDP tries to say that Healthcare is what defines us as Canadians and that is both pathetic and Puerile. Somebody needs to smash that kind of thinking and be brave enough to fix our health care

 

[blackbird]

On 4/17/2025 at 12:42 PM, SpankyMcFarland said:

They don’t have the challenge of delivering care across a subcontinent.

They have to provide all kinds of equipment and various specialists in Scandinavian countries.  That costs a lot.   Yet they can provide good service, likely much better service than in Canada.

[SpankyMcFarland]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

They have to provide all kinds of equipment and various specialists in Scandinavian countries.  That costs a lot.   Yet they can provide good service, likely much better service than in Canada.

Perhaps they can. They do nearly everything well. I happen to think Australia is a more realistic standard for us to aim for. Like them we are a complex state politically, culturally and ethnically. That makes consensus a lot harder to arrive at than in the likes of Norway, Iceland or Denmark. 

Edited Saturday at 01:09 AM by SpankyMcFarland