Over the past dozen years, every health system in the Western world has moved from struggling with capacity issues to becoming nearly overwhelmed. This is no less true for Canada – and our shifting demographics to a more aged population will exacerbate the capacity issue.
The news from the recently released Canadian Institute for Health Information report on emergency department (ED) congestion is not new. Nor is the news from the survey by the Ontario Medical Association on ED congestion.
When it comes to cancer prevention, we often imagine breakthrough drugs, expensive technology or years of scientific discovery. But one of the most promising ways to prevent ovarian cancer is already here. It's simple, safe, takes just a few extra minutes in the operating room, and has the potential to save thousands of lives. So why aren't we doing more of it?
A man in a Rotterdam clinic placed a large dose of pharmaceutical-grade heroin on a piece of foil, heated it from underneath and inhaled the vapour through a tube. I stood a few feet away, behind a glass wall, watching.
We are clinicians and health system researchers. Through both our clinical and academic work, we bear witness to a health system that is under great pressure, with more sick patients and fewer hospital beds and resources to meet their needs.
Canada's emergency departments (EDs) had no summer reprieve. In July, Global News reported that Montreal EDs were operating above 200 per cent capacity. In British Columbia, CityNews reported eight overnight interruptions at Mission Memorial's ED in two weeks because of physician shortages. By August, 100 Mile House had recorded its 36th ED closure of 2026, with patients directed to a hospital 95 kilometers away.
Ten years after British Columbia declared toxic drugs a public health emergency, Canada is still struggling to turn promising responses into lasting interventions that save lives.
Few things are more frightening for a parent than watching a baby struggle to breathe. A child who seemed well suddenly has difficulty feeding, becomes exhausted or needs hospital care. For families, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, can mean anxious hours in an emergency department and days at a hospital bedside.
Canada has long punched above its weight in clinical trial activity: the rigorous, multi-stage research studies that give Canadians early access to breakthrough treatments. For years, we’ve led the G7 in clinical trials per capita – a point of national pride – but that advantage is slipping away, and fast.
The use of technology to monitor workers is not new. Take, for example, the use of security cameras, keystroke loggers and screen-time monitoring. Artificial intelligence (AI), however, is introducing new forms of surveillance that are more intrusive and controlling.
When someone in cardiac rehabilitation is told to follow a Mediterranean diet, they most likely picture olive oil, salmon, nuts and colourful salads. Maybe tomatoes, chickpeas and whole grains. For some Canadians, these foods are familiar, affordable and readily available. For others, they may bear little resemblance to the foods they grew up eating, the meals their families prepare or what is available at their local grocery store.
The CN Milton Logistics Hub, a nearly finished $250-million project on about 400 acres of CN-owned land, highlights the challenge of balancing economic growth, public health and environmental protection.
Imagine being told that you carry a genetic mutation that significantly increases your risk of developing cancer. For many people with Lynch syndrome, that is their reality. They may spend decades undergoing regular colonoscopies and other forms of surveillance, knowing that cancer could still develop. But what if a vaccine could change that?
At a recent Economic Club of Canada event, Scaling What Works: Advancing Healthcare Excellence Across Canada, two comments stayed with me long after discussion ended.
As physicians, we spend years learning how to make the right diagnosis. We memorize diagnostic criteria, interpret investigations and learn to distinguish one condition from another. Accuracy does matter. A diagnosis guides treatment, shapes prognosis and helps us communicate with our colleagues.
One in three patients over 70 leaves hospital less able to care for themselves than when they arrived. I am an internist. I have taught that number to my trainees. This fall, I watched it happen to my father. Hospital-associated disability is not a rare complication. It is the expected output of how we run acute care.
A new health trend rarely arrives quietly. It usually comes with a promise: better sleep, more energy, less inflammation, sharper focus, improved metabolism or a more “optimized” life. It sounds scientific. It feels personal. It may come with a wearable score, a testimonial, a supplement, a tracking app or one simple rule that seems easy to follow.
Loneliness and social isolation are recognized as severe public health challenges in this age of fast-changing lifestyles, technology and information.
Canada is facing growing pressure to integrate Artificial Intelligence into its health system – often framed as a solution to physician shortages, long wait times and rising patient demand.
More than 123 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced by war, violence and climate-related disasters between 2016-2025. Now, following sweeping United States policies, many high-income countries are restricting refugee access to asylum, education and work. Against this backdrop, last September we published the Halifax Declaration arguing for a different approach: one that recognizes displaced people not as passive aid recipients, but as partners in building resilient health, education and social systems.
Despite a history steeped in diabetes-related breakthroughs (the discovery of insulin and a track record of performing more insulin-producing cell transplants than any other country), Canada is at risk of losing ground to global peers who are rapidly advancing clinical trials and commercialization at the national level.
If we wanted to understand what it takes to win a Super Bowl, we definitely would be listening to what seven-time winner Tom Brady has to say. We also would listen to teams that lost. Their experiences matter, too. But it would seem strange to study who wins football championships without spending considerable time talking to the people who actually won them. To understand cancer survivorship, we listen not only to oncologists and researchers but also to people who have survived cancer and gone on to live healthy, rewarding and meaningful lives. So why is addiction recovery different?
By now, just about everyone has seen or heard Doug Ford’s ad campaign claiming that the current premier seeks to Protect Ontario. It’s crystal clear that Ford’s version of “safety” only applies to a fraction of his constituents.
Lying in a cold operating room surrounded by the health-care team, I watched trainees gather around to observe my surgery. Their presence was anticipated, given the central role hospitals play in health‑professions education. Yet as I lay there, vulnerable and exposed, I felt less like a person and more like a teaching case.
Few issues in medicine are as ethically complex and important as medical assistance in dying, (MAiD). Reasonable people can disagree about where eligibility should begin and end, how at-risk individuals should be protected, and what safeguards are necessary before an irreversible decision is made. But Alberta's Bill 18, the Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act, moves the conversation in the wrong direction.
Canadian health care does not need another technology that simply changes the shape of administrative burden. It needs technology that gives clinicians and health-system professionals time back for professional development and clinical work.
In medical school, students routinely examine one another to practice clinical skills before applying them in real-world settings. So, when a classmate noticed small lumps in my neck, I made sure to get it checked, thinking there must be something wrong. However, the examination and imaging did not reveal anything concerning and I moved on.
In the midst of polycrises such as the COVID pandemic, climate change, financial precarity and the rise of artificial intelligence, there has been growing global momentum for early intervention in the mental health of young people.
The insulin pen had been sitting on his kitchen table for months. The 46‑year‑old man, a retired Sri Lanka born chef living in the Toronto area, had survived oral cancer, pancreatitis and a lifetime of hard work. But nothing frightened him more than the small plastic pen meant to save his life. On a June morning, during a routine check after his jaw surgery, he finally confessed his fears.
For years, we talked about health misinformation as if it were mainly a knowledge problem: patients encountering false claims online, doctors correcting them and the better information winning.
Bill C-30 represents a paradox: its immediate and long-term health and economic consequences are severe and far-reaching, and undermine the logic used to justify it.
If we are serious about improving health outcomes, particularly for populations navigating systemic barriers, creative expression should not be treated as an add-on. It should be recognized as a practical, accessible component of care.
Imagine a world where creativity is prescribed alongside medicine – where artists collaborate with doctors to heal body, mind and spirit.
For newcomer survivors of gender-based domestic violence, expressive arts are not decorative. They are a practical, culturally responsive component of recovery.
Community artists help humanize both health care and settlement experiences by creating accessible, relational entry points.
For newcomers to Canada, creativity isn’t just a pastime – it can be a lifeline.
This series is a deep dive into the lives and working conditions of health-care professionals across Canada. It includes six profiles that explore the challenges, triumphs and priorities not only of our the health-care system as a whole, but of the workers who support it.
In partnership with AMS Healthcare, Healthy Debate is publishing a series of solutions-focused articles on emerging technologies and their potential for transformational change in our health-care system.
"Togethering" is the term for how we live out our vision of how we care for our families together. "Family" can mean the traditional nuclear family across generations, modern-day chosen families, friends and neighbours. This series explores how modern families are navigating their own version of "Togethering." These three articles are the first instalments of a 10-part series examining the intersection of housing, aging and caregiving.
In partnership with AMS Healthcare, Healthy Debate is publishing a series of solutions-focused articles examining gaps in our health-care system.