Commentaries, Aging Population & Its Potential Impact
What kind of health workforce will be needed to serve our aging population?We know that Canada’s population is aging. Among the many statistics that have been reported is how in 2015, the proportion of Canadian seniors surpassed that of youth under 15 for the first time. The gap will continue to widen over the next 20 years.
Time to re-think health care policy for the elderlyAs the Canadian population continues to age, there is a need to revisit conventional thinking regarding the provision of health care services for seniors to ensure that the system is sustainable for all Canadians. There are a number of misperceptions in current thinking.
We must speak for those who can’tOn June 6, the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision making physician-hastened death legal will come into effect. A parliamentary committee asked to help the government plot how that would roll out in Canada has made some far-reaching recommendations, well beyond what was contemplated by the court in Carter v. Canada.
Advanced directives for assisted-dying a dangerous stepThe moment we are born, our lives take flight; and the longer we are airborne, the greater the chance of encountering turbulence along the way. While every flight is destined to land, some landings are harder to contemplate than others.
Why Canadians need to be having end-of-life conversationsCanadians likely had many important conversations with their loved ones over the holidays, but probably most didn’t talk about what should happen in the event they could no longer speak or make medical decisions for themselves.
Why Canada needs a national plan to address dementia and Alzheimer’sOne of the biggest threats to quality of life and health in aging is the loss of cognitive abilities and functional autonomy that are associated with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.
Why we need to think twice about adopting an Australian model of pension reformIn their recent “Report on Business” commentary, authors Charles Lammam and Stephen Kirchner of the Fraser Institute urge the Province of Ontario to adopt an Australian model of pension provision instead of expanding the Canada Pension Plan as proposed in the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.
What do Canadians need from pension reform?Pension reform continues to hold interest across the country, especially given the willingness of the federal Conservatives to at least talk about expanding the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).
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This free ebook is a compilation of the EvidenceNetwork.ca commentaries published in major newspapers in 2015, written by experts in the health policy field.
By Réjean Hébert
Funding home care and long-term care is fast becoming the main challenge of our outdated medicare system — a system developed in the mid-twentieth century for a young population that mostly required acute care from hospitals and physicians.