Waiting for the medical care Canadians need has become the national pastime. But unlike America’s pastime — baseball — hanging around for the care you need is not a good way to spend a sunny, summer afternoon even if your have hotdogs and beer.
“Healthcare”
LUCYK: Medical waitlist deaths climb, but do governments even notice?
Enough Canadians to fill up a small city like Lethbridge, AB, or Kamloops, BC, have died on medical waitlists over the past six years.
And yet, governments don’t seem to care enough to actively track the problem.
20 Percent of Canadians Do Not Have Family Doctor: Survey
One in five Canadians say they do not have a family doctor and face health-care challenges as a result, according to a recent survey.
The survey, conducted by Angus Reid in collaboration with the Canadian Cancer Society was released on Nov. 28.
The survey also found that many Canadians who do have a family doctor report it is difficult to get an appointment, waiting at least a week or more to be seen. Survey authors say that is because doctors are taking on too much.
Canadians are protecting the mirage of single-tier health care. It doesn’t exist
Canadian health care as an idea, and Canadian health care as an institution, exist in two different universes.
Notionally, health care in Canada is single-payer, universal and egalitarian. No one can jump the line. No one can buy better or faster care. Everyone has reasonably timely access to primary and specialist care, and critical issues are treated as true medical emergencies.
More than 23,000 Canadians died on medical wait-lists in the past year, new report finds
A new report is raising alarm over growing wait-list deaths in Canada.
The report from public policy think tank SecondStreet.org revealed that at least 23,746 patients died in Canada while waiting for surgeries or diagnostic procedures between April 2024 and March 2025.
The figures are a three per cent increase from the previous year and push the total number of reported wait-list deaths since 2018 to more than 100,000.
Well so long as some 3rd World flotsam got superior care to a Canadian citizen then I guess that’s all right.
h/t Mauser
Roughly 500,000 Canadians left ERs before seeing a doctor last year, data shows
About a half a million Canadians left emergency departments before being seen by a doctor in 2024, according to a data analysis by CBC’s Marketplace.
And because B.C. and Quebec report these figures based on the fiscal calendar (and include parts of 2025), that number is likely a lot higher.
The 2024 statistics collected from most provinces and territories show Prince Edward Island had the highest percentage of people leaving, at roughly 14 per cent.
Nearly 60 Percent of Canadians Support Health Care Reform, Private Care Options: Poll
Nearly six in 10 Canadians support reform of the country’s public health-care system, including use of private clinics when patients face delays in receiving timely care, a new survey suggests.
Think tank SecondStreet.org, in partnership with Leger, polled more than 1,600 adults nationwide on five health-care reform options, based on the experiences of other “better-performing” universal health-care systems around the world, including those in Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Australia, Germany, and Japan, said the report detailing the findings.
GOLDSTEIN: Canada’s doctor shortage no accident, it was government policy
Millions of Canadians don’t have a family doctor — and it’s not by accident.
Canada’s ongoing doctor shortage was the direct result of government policy decisions made decades ago. In the early 1990s, provincial governments deliberately reduced medical school enrolment and capped residencies, setting the stage for the health-care crisis Canadians face today.
‘You Can’t Go Home Again,’ Say Canadian Expatriate Doctors
Doctor shortages have reached a critical level in Canada. At last estimate, the country produces 17 new doctors per 100,000 people annually, meaning that millions of people lack access to a regular provider.
Structural factors may be contributing to the physician shortage. Residency slots are limited, some provinces have strict medical licensing requirements that include extra fees and arduous application processes, and practice eligibility requirements can become expensive. The situation is challenging for Canadians who have a passion for medicine but few options other than to seek education, residency spots, and jobs abroad.
Other countries doing universal health care better than Canada
Rarely does a day go by that Canadians are not reminded of the shortcomings of their health-care system. It’s normal to see reports of emergency room closures due to a lack of physicians, patients fleeing south or to another province to avoid lengthy delays or people leaving the ER without receiving treatment.
However, while these failures may feel normal to Canadians and might even be considered by some to be the price of universal health care, they are not normal in other universal health-care systems.
We have entered that weird space where any criticism of our healthcare system is countered with accusations of fascism.
More than 153,000 people harmed in Canada’s hospitals last year, study finds
Two decades after a watershed report on errors and unintended injuries in Canada’s hospitals shook the health-care sector, tens of thousands of Canadians continue to be harmed during a hospital stay — many of them, multiple times, new data show.
One in 17 hospitalizations in 2024-2025 — representing more than 153,000 people — resulted in someone experiencing a potentially preventable harm such as a drug error, hospital-acquired infection, a “patient accident” like a fall or radiation burn or some other incident serious enough to require treatment or a prolonged stay, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Nearly 6M Canadians on Medical Waitlists as Delays Outpace Pandemic Backlog: Report
Nearly six million Canadians are currently on a health-care waitlist, surpassing levels recorded in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report suggests.
Government data obtained by think tank SecondStreet.org indicate at least 3.7 million Canadians are waiting for surgery, a diagnostic scan, or to see a specialist. But the organization is suggesting figures from Canada’s provinces and territories may not tell the full story.
Ontario couple whose teenage son died after 8-hour wait in ER calls for law reform
An Ontario family is calling on the provincial government to introduce legislation that would set maximum emergency room wait times for children after their teenage son died following an eight-hour wait for a doctor in a hospital last year.
GJ and Hazel van der Werken, of Burlington, Ont., said their 16-year-old son, Finlay, had a few days of mild illness and was suffering from migraines before his condition began to worsen. Hazel rushed him to Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on Feb. 7, 2024, she said.
And who received treatment in advance of this young man?
A breakthrough drug could slow Alzheimer’s. Here’s why many Canadians may not be able to access it
Amherstburg, ONT. — When he was 64, Mike Kessler retired from his job in the auto industry because he felt like his brain wasn’t working as it should. He kept forgetting things like what day it was and the word he was looking for.
His wife, Karen, pushed their doctor for a referral to a neurologist. It took a year to see the specialist and another eight months for testing, but finally, in 2021, they had an answer: Mike had vascular dementia and mild Alzheimer’s.
Their family doctor told them that for now, there was nothing more to be done.
WHAT? Didn’t they offer him MAID?