Should medicine be ageist? A young trainee doctor recently proposed to me that it should. Healthcare is overstretched, she argued. “We can’t do everything for everyone, so why spend money on old people, who have little chance of benefit?”
Addressing the specific needs of Canada’s frail older adults would improve health outcomes and quality of life ― and reduce health costs
As the population ages, experts say that the current institutional model of care needs to change to better support aging patients.
When the previous Health Accord expired in 2014, the Harper government unilaterally established a new funding model for federal health transfer payments to the provinces and territories based on an equal per capita basis.
Last week the C.D. Howe Institute released a short study just in time for the finance ministers’ meeting — rolling out the tired, old argument that as people age, they do not need as much money to live as when they were younger. If only retirement were so easy.
Funding home care and long-term care is fast becoming the main challenge of our outdated medicare system — a system developed in the mid-twentieth century for a young population that mostly required acute care from hospitals and physicians.
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.
As 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.
Ontario spends $11-billion per year on prescription drugs. Nearly half of this is spent on medicines used by senior citizens, a group that receives public subsidies for nearly all of their prescription drug costs in Ontario.
The Older Adult Service Providers of Calgary released a report warning that more older adults could be at risk of homelessness if affordable seniors’ housing providers and mental health service providers don’t work together to tackle the growing problem of older adults living with mental illness.
