Should everyone have access to health care in a language they can understand? This is not a new question. In 2001, Health Canada released a report entitled ‘Language Barriers in Access to Health Care,’ calling for further research, including an exploration of the feasibility and cost of providing interpretation throughout the health care system. Since …
When Anne Lyddiatt’s family doctor retired, she went looking for a new one. The Ingersoll, Ontario resident thought she’d found one for herself, her two daughters, and her granddaughter, and they filled out application forms with their health information. But only one of the four was accepted: the daughter who had no chronic conditions. “When …
Hymns, protests, and arrests – that’s what happened when the Fort Erie, Ont. community rallied against a planned conversion of their local hospital’s emergency room to an urgent-care centre. It didn’t work, and in 2009, it seemed their fears were realized when a teenager died after she was in a car crash and had to be …
Trevor Cranney gets 60 hours of home care a month. Though he’s happy with the quality of care he’s getting, he doesn’t think it’s enough. “I suffer from ALS, and I’m unable to feed myself, brush my hair or do anything,” says the 42-year-old, who was recently given six to nine months to live. He would like …
If you’re looking for evidence-based health information in Canada, a lot depends on who – and where – you are. A physician in a teaching hospital? No problem. But family doctors in rural areas, nurses or physiotherapists have a much harder time accessing up to date materials. And the general public is more likely to find …
Shalimar Novak is sick of paying for parking. The social worker has been to Toronto’s Mount Sinai once or twice a week recently for appointments related to her pregnancy, and paid about $15 every time. “It definitely adds up,” she says. “And when you have a kid coming, you’re thinking in diaper dollars. It would be nice …
This month’s provincial budget renews a pledge to eliminate Ontario’s $12.5-billion deficit in the next four years. The commitment ensures that health care, which accounts for almost half of provincial spending, will continue to be under the microscope and the search to make the system more efficient will continue. The challenge is that much of …
How do we get more doctors to practice in rural communities? This has been a long standing challenge in Canada — getting physicians to work where we need them — especially in provinces with large rural populations. Policy makers have created and implemented some promising solutions, but until recently, there has been little evidence on …
When Nan Normand’s husband had quintuple bypass surgery, it cost them $1,500. It wasn’t the operation that was pricey, but the travel. The couple went from Kenora, a small city near the Ontario-Manitoba border, to Hamilton for the surgery. The trek included flights and a multiple-night stay. Normand was unlucky: Manitoba had temporarily stopped accepting most Ontario heart patients, …
Nearly two years ago, the federal government made significant cuts to its Interim Federal Health Program, which allows refugees to access essential health services, such as medical testing and treatment. As a result, many refugees have lost access to health care, medication coverage, vision and dental care. Furthermore, persecuted individuals from designated countries of origin, such as Hungary …
With the summer months ahead– many of us plan to explore the outdoors, perhaps spend a weekend by a lake or camp in a provincial park. For the vast majority of Ontarians, time spent in the outdoors doesn’t mean that we are far from the safety net and comforts of home. If we run into …
Many Canadian children struggle with their weight. The number of kids with childhood obesity has been growing since the 1970s, with measured rates rising from 6% in 1978 to 13% in 2004. In addition, 18% of children are overweight. It’s part of a larger global trend: 23% of children in developed countries were overweight or obese in 2013. In …
For the other side of this debate, see Marnie Escaff & Nizar Mahomed’s Caring for international patients improves care for Canadians Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto has recently been in the news for its new method of revenue generation: offering care to wealthy foreign patients – aka “medical tourists” – who are able to pay out-of-pocket for …
It’s a weekend shift in a Canadian Emergency Department. On a stretcher lies a woman in her sixties. She has, just this week, been diagnosed with an advanced cancer. Her symptoms crept up on her, unnoticed or passed off as the result of inactivity during a long cold winter. These multiple niggling things had finally …
Virtual care (where the provider and patient are separated in space and sometimes in time) is a natural next step in technological innovation for healthcare. Increasing care virtualization has the potential to improve quality of life for patients while increasing the healthcare system’s efficiency but it presents substantial challenges for clinicians and policy makers. The …
It is no secret that Canada suffers from an inequitable distribution of health professionals. A 2012 report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information revealed that 18% of Canadians live in rural and remote areas, yet only 8% of doctors live in these regions. The lack of access to medical services in rural communities contributes …
People with end-stage kidney disease have two treatment options: dialysis or transplantation. Dialysis is the process of removing waste and excess water from the blood, by hooking up to a machine that mimics the function of the kidney. Transplantation, however, is the optimal treatment for end-stage kidney disease, because it reduces a patient’s risk of …
To get better quality, timely health care, patients and providers must continue to find ways to make a patient’s regular family doctor the customary first option for non-emergency care needs. As it stands, both parties could be doing more to strengthen the patient-doctor relationship, and financial incentives on providers alone likely won’t be sufficient. Because …