Why Canada is lagging the world in vaccinations

[K Douglas]

Canada's public health data meltdown - Macleans.ca

When needed the most, the systems that track health and vaccines were a scattered mess. How Canada went from a world leader in public health technology to laggard.

www.macleans.ca

As one who works with a company engaged in the healthcare system, I have seen this deficiency first hand. Our healthcare system is archaic, mainly because the Canada Health Act prohibits any meaningful private investment in the system. Plus our provinces do little to collaborate amongst one another.

 

[MadGeek]

Canada's public health data meltdown - Macleans.ca

When needed the most, the systems that track health and vaccines were a scattered mess. How Canada went from a world leader in public health technology to laggard.

www.macleans.ca

As one who works with a company engaged in the healthcare system, I have seen this deficiency first hand. Our healthcare system is archaic, mainly because the Canada Health Act prohibits any meaningful private investment in the system. Plus our provinces do little to collaborate amongst one another.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Even though all the shipments of vaccines arriving in Canada come with scannable barcodes, to make tracking and logistics easier—with some manufacturers even barcoding the vials themselves—no Canadian province can scan them. In many provinces, pharmacies can’t access the provincial vaccine registry. Provinces do not automatically submit reports on COVID-19 cases or vaccines into the federal system, and must submit reports manually. Many crucial reports are still submitted by fax: Where fax has recently been phased out, they have been replaced by emailed PDFs.

Ours is a dumb system of pen-and-paper and Excel spreadsheets, in a world quickly heading towards smart systems of big data analytics, machine learning and blockchain. It’s unclear how Ottawa will be able to issue vaccine passports, even if it wants to.

At the core of the omnishambles is a simple fact that Canada has no national public health information system, but 13 different regional ones. Many of those regional systems have smaller, disconnected, systems within: Like a Russian nesting doll of antiquated technology.

There is so much more wrong, even within Provincial boundaries and further down within regional health authorities and even within hospitals.

As someone navigating the healthcare system for a major illness for the first time in my life, I have found out just how terrible the state of our healthcare system is. I've had ER's take two or in some cases three days to get pertinent information to my family physician. More often than not my DR has to call the ER and hound them for information. Madness. Or as I found out last weekend even within a hospital communication paths are inefficient. I went to the ER on Friday, was sent home to with instructions to contact my physician the following week but Saturday morning was called back to the ER as the Dr. on shift on the Friday didn't wait for the full analysis from the radiologist and didn't do anything with it when he did get it. Thankfully the Dr. on Saturday took the time to figure out why he had a report for a patient he didn't have a chart for and then tracked me down.

11% of our GDP is spent on health care. You would think $264B would buy some competency and efficiencies.

How Much Does Canada Spend on Health Care?

Healthcare is one of the most significant considerations in the Western world. While Canada’s situation differs from that of the US, as well as EU nations and even the UK, there are issues affecting the health care industry of Canada, including long wait times to receive treatment. How much does…

www.ephpp.ca

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[james t kirk]

Because Justin Trudeau is utterly incompetent and has failed to produce vaccine domestically, instead figuring he could just buy it like he was picking up a prescription from Shoppers Drug Mart.

That's why.

 

[redshank]

I don’t think it’s wise to rely on a country for vaccine supply while at the same time holding on to one of their more prominent citizens for possible extradition. They might decide to fuck you over at a more opportune time

 

[GameBoy27]

Because Justin Trudeau is utterly incompetent and has failed to produce vaccine domestically, instead figuring he could just buy it like he was picking up a prescription from Shoppers Drug Mart.

That's why.

There's only a handful of countries who manufacture vaccines. I'm not surprised they've vaccinated more people to date than we have. At the same time, there's no reason (other than incompetence) that we should be that far behind all the other countries who don't rely on making their own. If it was the Cons who screwed up procurement as badly as the Libs have, I would be just as critical of them.