What you need to know about the federal government’s reversal of the refugee health cuts After significant public opposition and efforts from the health sector, the federal government has finally backtracked on many of their cuts to the refugee health program brought about in 2012. The drastic changes to the Interim Federal Health program cut off …
It’s not a flashy place. The Toronto Drug Treatment Court, tucked away in a corner of Old City Hall, has plywood sheets on the walls, wires dangling where ceiling tiles should be, and a microphone that only works sporadically. Today is one of the days it doesn’t. Justice Mary Hogan promises to speak loudly so …
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 …
Reports of low-skilled Canadian workers being replaced with those from other countries spurred changes earlier this year to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. But they’ve made it harder for areas in need of physicians as well. The system was overhauled this summer after reports that companies were misusing the program, with Canadian workers at RBC and …
If you regularly peruse the pages of Healthy Debate, you’re in the bubble; one could call you an ‘insider’. If you’ve heard of the Canadian Institute of Health Information or Health Quality Ontario, or if you scan the news for columns by André Picard, Kelly Grant or Tom Blackwell, then you are an insider. Do you ever tune into White Coat Black Art, …
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 …
Through our work looking at the negative public health impacts of coal on Albertans’ health, we often run into skeptics. “Show me the grave of someone who died from coal!” they demand. This is difficult, given the nature of coal’s effect on our health: the science of public health looks at things at a population, …
Canada spends a significant proportion of its budget on health care, while achieving average population health outcomes compared with other OECD countries. It is difficult to achieve coordinated and comprehensive care, due in part to the strain of a dependence on acute care services, accounting for nearly 30% of total health care costs. An aging …
The United States began releasing the Medicare payments it made to individual doctors on April 9, a move that sparked sensational headlines and debates about privacy. The data offer insights into the $77 billion paid by Medicare’s fee-for-service program to more than 880,000 health care professionals in 2012. Should Canadian provinces follow the U.S.’s lead and publicly …
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 …
Expenditures on public health care in Canada appear to be slowing raising the possibility that the health care cost curve is finally being bent and the system transformed. Numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show that real per capita public sector health spending peaked in 2010 at $2,687 (1997 constant dollars) and is …
Family medicine was a popular choice among medical graduates in the 1980s, when Roger Strasser was training at The University of Western Ontario. “The residents had almost a missionary zeal that they were going to be family doctors,” he says. He shared their passion, becoming a family physician. But when he returned to Canada in 2002, after going back …
As the United States attempts to overhaul health care and improve access for more of its citizens a US Senate committee recently met in Washington and invited several international experts to share perspectives on their own health care systems. Toronto physician Dr. Danielle Martin very nicely represented the Canadian perspective. It was an articulate presentation …
A poll of Canadians from earlier this year found that the environment ranks as the third most important issue to us, behind the economy and health care. In fact, Canadians are quite divided in their opinions about the environment and what we ought to be doing to protect natural resources and regulate environmental pollutants. Some of …
For the other side of the debate, read Monika Dutt’s Medical tourism is bad business for Canadian hospitals In recent weeks a few people have written about international patients in Canadian hospitals, “medical tourism” and the “slippery slope” that the writers all seem to believe will inevitably lead to two-tiered medicine. We are responsible for the …