Your Health Care Isn’t As Good As You Think It Is

NC – That’s the message of a new report, “Better health, better care, better value for all”, from the Health Council of Canada. The Health Council looked at national and international data and concluded that although Canada is one of the top spenders on health care, our results are not that impressive.

Compared to other high income countries like Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada falls in the middle when we look at measures of our health status, such as how long Canadians can expect to live or what percentage of Canadians have multiple chronic conditions (e.g., arthritis, cancer, heart disease). Our ranking on health care services is even worse—near the bottom—when it comes to how long Canadians have to wait for elective surgery or how easy it is to get primary health care outside office hours.

More alarming is that there are inequities in health care across the country. It turns out that where you live matters. For example:

• In 2009, 8.1% of Newfoundland and Labrador residents had diabetes, almost double the rate (4.2%) of Yukon residents.

• In 2012, 62% of doctors in British Columbia reported that their patients can get an appointment the same day or the next day. In Quebec, that percentage was 22%.

• In 2012, 84% of patients in Ontario waiting for knee replacement surgery received treatment within 26 weeks (the standard across Canada), compared to just 35% of patients in Prince Edward Island.

And while all of us pay taxes so that our health care is there when we need it, the cost of prescription drugs can be an extra burden. One in 10 Canadians reports not filling a prescription or skipping doses because of cost. Not all Canadians have the same drug coverage though governments have promised this in the past.

So what is the solution? It isn’t to ask governments to spend more money on health care. In fact, Canada has invested a lot of new money in health care over the last 10 years. But the largest percentage of funds are still spent on hospital care, drugs and physicians, even though there is growing demand in areas such as managing chronic conditions and home care services to meet the needs of our aging society.

The Health Council proposes that we do things differently if we want a higher-performing health system. First, the federal, provincial, and territorial governments must agree on shared goals, specifically: better health, better care, and better value for all Canadians. There must also be strong leadership and sustained support in areas such as measurement and reporting, so that governments and health care organizations can be held accountable. Finally, governments across Canada must collaborate more effectively, and the federal government needs to be an active player.

The bottom line? Canadians deserve better health care. We must, and we can, do better with what we have.

Visit the Health Council of Canada website to read the full report (healthcouncilcanada.ca/refocusinghealthcare) and to read blogs from health industry leaders (healthcouncilcanada.blogspot.ca/).