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 […]
A version of this commentary appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Province and the Hill Times It all started when the two of us sat down over a cup of coffee. As a family physician and endocrinologist, we stand on opposite sides of a large chasm called patient wait times, and we both started […]
There’s no denying that the food environment influences the diets of Canadian families, and that food industry marketing is part of that environment. Canadian children are now developing chronic diseases that were almost exclusively seen in adults when I went to medical school a few decades back. There has been a big shift in our […]
A version of this commentary appeared in the Montreal Gazette, the Hill Times and Victoria Times Colonist There’s nothing like an American health care debate to make Canadians feel lucky. As his first act in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order, taking the first step to repeal the Affordable Care Act. With the stroke […]
Are wait times for hip replacements in Canada justified — or could they be shortened? I spent my life teaching actuarial science at a university. As a result, I calculated lots of numbers: averages, expected values, variances. But, they were only numbers. What I didn’t see was the individual human story behind each calculation. […]
Public opinion polls show many Canadians worry about surgical wait times. Anecdotal media reports and heated political debates encourage this worry. But the question remains: Are Canadians waiting too long for surgery?
