Canadian Health Care Archives - Page 4 of 5

Long Wait Times Shouldn’t Be The Price We Pay For Universal Health Care

June 5, 2017

For more than two decades, the Fraser Institute has annually surveyed specialist physicians across Canada to estimate how long patients wait for treatment. Our latest survey found that in 2016, overall, patients were waiting 20 weeks between referral from a family doctor to treatment — the longest wait in our survey’s history and 115 per cent longer than in 1993.

While the intervening years have seen increased measurement and acknowledgment of wait times in Canada, they also produced an unhealthy acceptance of the problem — as though wait times are the necessary price for universal health care. Like the anecdote of the frog in the pot of cold water, which is slowly brought to a boil without the frog’s knowledge or immediate discomfort, the slow but fairly consistent annual lengthening of wait times for treatment has made us sometimes forget that our system fails to deliver timely access to care and real people suffer as a result.

Demand for mental health care growing at Canadian universities

June 2, 2017

Demand for mental health care at universities across Canada, including UBC, is growing according to a recent investigation by the Toronto Star and Ryerson School of Journalism.

But some students say the university’s services aren’t enough.

Despite that, the report revealed that many Canadian universities have significantly increased mental health funding, although some are struggling to meet growing the demand.

Cheryl Washburn, director of counselling services at UBC, said in an email that from the 2014-2015 school year to the 2015-2016 school year, funding for counselling services has gone up by over 30 per cent.

Toronto health-care company billed Ontario, regional governments millions as employees allege missed payments

May 30, 2017

A Toronto-based health-care company that’s been the subject of a number of employee complaints of late or non-payment has received millions in contracts from the provincial and regional governments.

Abira Healthcare — a designated physiotherapy service provider approved and funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health — is reportedly consistently delayed in paying some therapists hired to work in long-term care homes, a CBC Toronto investigation has found. Some complaints date back almost five years.

To provide its services, Abira — which is owned by Dani Diena and also operates as a numbered company: 2275518 Ontario Inc. — hires independent contractors throughout southwestern Ontario to carry out physiotherapy and other rehabilitation at care homes and clinics across the province. It also operates a physiotherapy clinic in north Toronto.

American conservatives love to bash Canadian health care — but U.S. corporations love it

May 28, 2017

President Donald Trump has been pushing hard, along with Republicans in Congress, to eliminate former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. But as he and leaders of the Senate and House struggle to come up with some alternative health care law, they might ask themselves why large companies like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler (now Fiat Chrysler) over recent decades have shifted roughly half their car and truck production — and the jobs that go with them — across the Detroit River into Canada.

Here’s one big reason they did it: Canada’s government-run single-payer health system, known as Medicare — to be clear, not the same Medicare as the American health care system for senior citizens — lowers those auto companies’ health care costs from more than $15,000 per worker in the United States to just a few thousand dollars in Canada, with all Canadian taxpayers, not just employees and their employers, picking up the tab.

Canadian Health Care Is Failing Our Refugees

May 26, 2017

Despite policy changes last April to Canada’s refugee health care program, many people continue to be left without adequate access to health care.

That’s the finding that comes out of a series of interviews we conducted recently with refugee service providers in Ottawa.

Health care for refugees in Canada falls under the responsibility of the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), and it has had some tumultuous years.

In June 2012, the federal government made significant cuts to the program, leaving many refugees and refugee claimants without access to publicly-funded health care while causing serious confusion among health care providers.

Health care advocates challenged the cuts in the Federal Court and in 2014, the Court found the cuts violated the Charter as they were “cruel and unusual.”

Canadians know their healthcare isn’t perfect, but they would never trade their system for America’s

May 22, 2017

In my view, the major failure of President Obama and the Democrats in 2009 was that they did not frame or discuss health insurance reform as a human rights issue but rather got bogged down playing defense against Republican canards like socialism and death panels.

I’m a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. Canada’s single-payer system isn’t perfect, but I can say that the stress experienced by the cancer survivor in Lazarus’ column who had to file for bankruptcy would never have happened in Canada. While Canadians might complain from time to time, they would not trade their system for the one in the United States.

What Trump’s agenda means for Canadian health care

May 22, 2017

TORONTO, Ont./Troy Media/ – Americans face a growing threat to their health. And it could have a negative impact in Canada.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA). If the bill becomes law, it could leave millions in the U.S. without care.

Just over a month ago, efforts to pass AHCA imploded before the bill could even be brought to a vote. Now there’s a real chance it could come to fruition, transforming American health care for the second time in a decade.

Why is the issue of health care in the U.S. so fraught? And is Canada immune to the social whiplash underway south of us?

Canada should take health-care lessons from Australia

May 10, 2017

Australia and Canada share many characteristics, but Canadians may not know one of them is that Australia’s universal health insurance scheme, Medicare, was modelled on Canada’s, albeit adapted to account for constitutional differences between the two countries.

There are indeed a number of areas where Australia’s experience might prove helpful to Canada. The first is the public funding of pharmaceuticals. Australia has had a national Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme since the late 1940s. It now provides comprehensive coverage against the cost of pharmaceuticals for the whole population. The scheme, though, requires patients to make a modest co-payment for each prescription. For people on income support (retirees, unemployed) the co-payment is $6.30 ($6.34); for the rest of the population it is $38.80. There is a safety net, which drops the price to zero or $6.30 after about 50-60 prescriptions a year.

How to improve Indigenous health? Address jurisdictional disputes

May 9, 2017

In 2017, there remains a health-care system in Canada excluded from the shelter of the 1984 Canada Health Act. Funded by the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada (FNIHB), Canada’s 14th health-care system operates outside of the legislative framework of the 13 provinces and territories. It operates on First Nation reserves across Canada and in the Inuit communities of northern Quebec and Labrador.

Ample evidence shows that Canadians faced with serious health issues experience considerable challenges navigating their provincial health-care system. For First Nations and Inuit patients, this is compounded by having to continuously cross jurisdictional boundaries to access the care they need – They are faced with additional challenges because federal and provincial authorities often disagree on which system should pay for which services.

Studies have shown that jurisdictional confusion creates barriers to First Nations and Inuit accessing services other Canadians can expect. Despite having been involved in the funding and delivery of health services to First Nations and Inuit since 1945, the federal government has yet to clearly define its obligations to First Nations and Inuit in relation to the provision of health services.

Three startups, three ways to reduce stress on the health-care system

May 4, 2017

Since Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberals embarked on testy negotiations with the provinces over health transfers for the next decade, Canadians have seen the re-emergence of a persistent public-policy issue: runaway medical expenses.

Those expenses now soak up more than 70 per cent of some provincial budgets, and Ottawa’s initial proposal — another 3.5 per cent a year — is widely seen as inadequate. The provinces feel — even with an added $11 billion the feds say they would spend on mental health and home care over the coming decade — that is simply not enough for a population that is both aging and ailing. Almost four in 10 Canadians over the age of 20 report that they suffer from at least one of 10 major chronic conditions.

But in the face of overstretched budgets, there are now other options, many of which represent the long-sought shift to prevention from cure. A growing number of entrepreneurs have recognized that with the assistance of cutting-edge technology, employers can play a role in reducing stress on the health-care system by helping their employees fend off illness.