How to shorten hospital wait times in Canada Long wait times are the vulnerable soft underbelly of the Canadian health system. Canadians treasure our single-payer, publicly funded program of physician and hospital care, virtually as a defining part of our national identity. And yet, increasing legal and political pressure over quick access to elective surgeries […]
“Medicare,” provides public funding for all medically necessary hospital and physician services.
A version of this commentary appeared in the Globe & Mail, the Huffington Post and the Victoria Times Colonist. 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. […]
On January 26, the Quebec regulation abolishing medical user fees came into effect, bringing the province in line with federal legislation outlined in the Canada Health Act (CHA). According to the CHA, the money that flows from Ottawa to the provinces for health services, known as the Canada Health Transfer, is conditional on the provinces […]
We have built a sickness care system rather than a health system This convocation speech was delivered to graduating MDs at the University of Manitoba on the receipt of an honorary doctorate on May 14, 2015. André Picard is a health reporter and columnist at The Globe and Mail, where he has been a staff […]
With a federal campaign in full force grabbing the majority of the headlines, a significant threat to Canada’s most treasured national program is going largely unnoticed.
The unexpected and largely unreported good news about homecare in this country is that the vast majority of Canadians who receive home help or homecare for a chronic health condition are getting all the services they need.
Almost continuously since the second half of the 1990s, Canadians have pointed to health care as their largest national concern and the issue that should receive the greatest attention from Canada’s leaders. Polls taken over the last decade or so have found that health care is typically the highest priority among voters.
