BROKEN: Our healthcare system.
- Thread starter Claudia Love
- Start date
April to June, 2023 | Ontario Employment Reports
Read our reports on developments in Ontario’s labour market, including employment rates and trends.
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- employment increased in the private sector (+3.3%), remained virtually unchanged in the public sector and declined for those who are self-employed (-1.0%);
- The horizontal bar chart shows a year-over-year (between the second quarters of 2022 and 2023) change in Ontario’s employment in the private sector, public sector and among the self-employed. Employment increased in the private sector by 171,800 (+3.3%) and the public sector by 500 (+0.0%) and declined for the self-employed by 10,300 (-1.0%).
There is no question that there are issues but the Canadian public is very well served by the system. Could it be improved? Of course, every system can be approved and that is a goal or aspirational. But disaster? Absurd.
Why does Canada have so many/spends so much on hospital administrators?
"Perhaps most people agree we have a healthcare crisis in Canada. Nurses and others in the profession are abandoning their patients and their careers to either take up other work entirely or to move away, some to the United States in the belief that conditions there are better.
Scott Laurie, writing in the Toronto Sun, reported, “Nurse Linda Li is one of many in her profession who are so fed up with deteriorating working conditions in Ontario, they’ve taken their badly-needed skills to the United States.”
Li went to Houston, Texas. It would appear the pay is not significantly better. Houston is uncomfortable in the summer. Housing is cheaper than in Toronto, but it also is in Regina as well. She abandoned the much-loved but rapidly deteriorating Canadian system.
The Canadian system was always on the edge. The pandemic only pushed up the timeline of the reckoning.
There are many factors that lead to a system so devoid of staff that emergency rooms are closed on the weekend (which is when I would have thought a lot of emergencies take place) but is it just a lack of money and too little pay for the rigors of the job?
No. It is in part due to a misallocation of the funds the system does have.
Consider a comparison with Germany. The Calgary Herald reported, “Canada has 10 times as many health-care administrators as Germany, even though Germany has twice the population of Canada.”
Germany is rated one of the best universal health care systems, while we are near the bottom. Germany has more doctors and nurses and more equipment.
Where do we spend our money?
“Canada has one health-care administrator for every 1,415 citizens. Germany: one health-care administrator for every 15,545. Even accounting for Canada’s vast land mass and that each province and territory runs its own system, the discrepancy doesn’t make sense.”
The multiplier is a shade under 11 times as many administrators. Do we have such a complicated system that it takes 11 smart Canadians to do the work of one German?
If so, there’s the problem. Simplify. How? Ask a German.
Are we better off because we have a football team playing one German? No.
The story continues: “Canada ranked worst out of the countries studied that had data available when it comes to the percentage of patients who waited two months or more for a specialist appointment (30% in Canada but just 3% in Germany) and worst again when it comes to the percentage of Canadians (18%) who waited four months or more for elective surgery compared to best in class Germany (0%).”
That lone German is scoring TDs against our squad.
Are all those administrators embarrassed? One might hope so in vain.
When we go the hospital, we want a doctor or a nurse, not a paper-pusher. Perhaps 10 of 11 administrators need to find something else to administer, because they aren’t getting it done in health care."
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/agar-a-reckoning-for-canadas-healthcare-system
It's broken because it is has been unaffordable ever since the hollowing out of the middle class (and the huge tax base that goes along with a large middle class) began in the 1980's when we started exporting all of our manufacturing jobs to Latin America and Asia, through to the 00's when we started severe restriction on the development of resource based industries.
It will NEVER be fixed until we either: 1) reduce services, 2) impose user fees (presumably based on income), and/or 3) restructure our economy BACK to restore a strong manufacturing sector and resource based industry sector.
There are lots of managerial issues that could also be addressed (procurement, bloated administration, integration of healthcare services and instituions, etc.) but just fixing the management issues won't plug the shortfall.
It will NEVER be fixed until we either: 1) reduce services, 2) impose user fees (presumably based on income), and/or 3) restructure our economy BACK to restore a strong manufacturing sector and resource based industry sector.
There are lots of managerial issues that could also be addressed (procurement, bloated administration, integration of healthcare services and instituions, etc.) but just fixing the management issues won't plug the shortfall.
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1) What has this to do with Ontario spending the lowest per capita of any province in Canada?
2) Why does the Sun ignore US admin's insurance, it makes Canada's admin levels look tiny.
Hey just curious all the billions of dollar the Liberal feds printed in the last few years, did any of it go towards building more hospitals, or hiring more nurses/doctors etc? Just checking...cuz yanno, they told us during covid that hospitals were overwhelmed and didn't have the capacity to help people. Also, how many of those newly printed dollars went to Ukraine?
Building hospitals is provincial, you're barking at the wrong tree.
Oh please. Feds push funds to the provinces all the time. It’s the correct tree.
Howno
How is provincial going to build hospitals with no money. Maybe as the friends who got building permits.
DoFo didn't spend fed money.
Ford held back $5.6 billion that should have been used to protect Ontarians: NDP
MPP, Waterloo
www.catherinefife.com
“What would the NDP do differently? We’d hire people in health care and long-term care urgently. We’d invest in a safe schools plan for our children. We’d beef up public health units instead of cutting them, as Ford is doing. We’d help small businesses, workers and the tourism sector. And we’d be there for municipalities now struggling with shortfalls, because they’ve been doing everything they can to pick up Ford’s slack.”DoFo didn't spend fed money.
Ford held back $5.6 billion that should have been used to protect Ontarians: NDP
MPP, Waterloo
I like how the NDP say they'd hire people in health care. Like there's tens of thousands of unemployed nurses sitting at home twiddling their thumbs. The reality is, there's not enough people to fill the positions we currently offered. The NDP talk a good game but they're a little out of touch with reality. That's why the majority don't vote for them.
Your opinion.
Voters will have their say as soon as DoFo resigns over the Greenbelt.
If you think the Liberals don't want to think about monetary policy and national debt....imagine where things would be if the NDP were in power federally.
True! However, comparisons to the US - the worst for admin costs- is not a good thing. We should compare admin expenses to similar systems in Europe. I don't think those comparisons would be favorable to Canada.
