Canadian healthcare system seriously needs change
Healthcare had been a hot topic at both federal level and provincial level, especially after the Canadian Health Care Accord had expired in 2014. Even though the Health Care Accord had received lots of criticisms, at least there was something in placed. We need urgently to review and revise our healthcare system which is currently broken in all aspects.
I was shock to find out how many of us have no idea on how Canadian healthcare system works. There is a yearly report - International Profiles of Health Care Systems, 2015 done by the Commonwealth Fund explained thoroughly on our healthcare system on P.21 or online by Sara Allin and David Rudoler at University of Toronto. The report outlines 18 countries around the globe their healthcare systems side by side.
The organization ranked Canada’s healthcare system 10 out of 11 countries in June 2014 in terms of measures of access, equity, quality, efficiency, and healthy lives. Among those, effectiveness, timeliness and safe care under quality of care scored last and second-last!
Just a few days ago, Economist’s EIU Perspectives released a report on breast cancer in Asia. At the same time, they released some data on different countries’ accessibility to cancer medicine. *Note that the report was sponsored by Pfizer.
Canada does like to reference other countries’ regulation and policies, at the same time, there are reports on Health Canada’s approval time on new drugs are slower than Europe and US - Fraser Institute’s Federal De-lays in Approving New Medicines 2013 shows that it takes Health Canada nearly a year (355 days) to grant marketing ap-proval to prescription drugs in 2011. Medicines are often approved faster in Europe and the United States, even approved medicines in Europe by European Medicines Agency or Food and Drug Administration in US might not get approved in Canada.
This chart shows you how weak our healthcare is!
While we know we are going to have a lot more seniors among us, isn't it urgent to have our healthcare system fixed to prepare ongoing healthcare and medical expenses?!
Original post: https://www.trufinancial.ca/content/canadian-healthcare-system-seriously-needs-change