Dearth of medical resources harms Canadian patients

Whether it’s a lack of family physicians or other health-care workers, Canadians know we have a serious health-care labour shortage on our hands. The implications of this shortage aren’t lost on patients (including Ellie O’Brien) who’ve possibly faced delays in accessing organ transplants because potential donors need a regular family doctor to screen them to begin the transplant process.

Given these access issues, coupled with some of the longest recorded wait times for medical procedures on record, is it any wonder that Canadians are dissatisfied with how their provincial governments handle health care?

While one instinct might be to demand governments spend more on health care, it’s not clear we’re getting good value in return for what’s already being spent. In fact, compared to 29 other high-income countries with universal health care, Canada spent the most on health care as a share of the economy at 12.6 per cent in 2021, the latest year of available comparable data (after adjusting for differences in the age structure of each country’s population).

But what do we get in return for this spending?

As far as medical resources go, not a whole lot. In 2021, Canadians had some of the fewest medical resources in the developed world. Out of 30 high-income countries with universal health care, Canada ranked 28th on physician availability at 2.8 per 1,000 people, far behind countries such as seventh-ranked Switzerland (4.5 physicians per 1,000) and tenth-ranked Australia (at 4.3 physicians per 1,000).

But doctors are just one part of the puzzle. Canada also ranked low on available hospital beds (23rd of 29 countries), meaning patients often face delays for hospital care. It can also mean that patients end up being treated for their illness outside a traditional patient room—such as a hospital hallway, a phenomenon that has spread to many provinces.

We also see a low availability of other key medical resources including diagnostic equipment. In 2019, Canada ranked 25th of 29 comparable countries with universal health care on the number of MRIs (10.3 units per million people) compared to top-ranked Japan, which had four times as many MRIs as Canada. And we ranked 26th out of 30 countries on CT scanners (14.9 scanners per million people) compared to second-ranked Australia, which had five times as many CT scanners. It’s also worth noting that a large a portion of Canada’s diagnostic machines are remarkably old.

It’s no accident that countries such as Australia, which actually spend less of its economy on health care compared to Canada, perform better than Canada on measures of resource availability and timeliness of care. Unlike Canada, Australia embraces its private sector as an integral part of its universal health-care system. With 41 per cent of all hospital care in Australia occurring in private hospitals in 2021/22, private hospitals can act as a pressure valve for the entire system, particularly in times of crisis. Indeed, the country outperforms Canada on measures of timely access to family doctor appointments, specialist care and non-emergency surgery, and has done so regularly for years.

The imbalance between high spending and poor access to doctors, hospital beds and vital imaging technology, coupled with untimely access to services, can, and does, have a detrimental impact on patients. For some, this problem can be life threatening. Without genuine reform based on real world lessons from higher performing universal health-care countries including Australia, it’s impossible to reasonably expect our health-care system to improve despite its hefty price tag.