A series of daunting factors have led to the public’s passive acceptance of paying high costs for a narrow range of services of mediocre quality.
The need for change in health care has been obvious for years. Many studies have been conducted and recommendations made on what’s needed to meet optimally the needs of the population in the current and coming decades. But change itself has been very scarce.
One reason is that none of our 14 provincial/territorial/federal health care delivery “systems’ has a single governance; the place where the “buck stops” with respect to what each does and does not accomplish and how well or poorly. It is only by default that Canadians hold their governments accountable for how well their hospitals, physicians, pharmacists, and other providers meet their changing needs for health care services. On the other hand that there are 14 “systems” could be an advantage as it was when Saskatchewan’s pioneering introduction of Medicare was copied by other jurisdictions.
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