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Dear John,
As you may have heard, the Ford government in Ontario recently announced plans to use more private clinics to help with Ontario’s surgical backlog.
Patients in Ontario are facing the longest wait times recorded in the province in three decades – 20.3 weeks in 2022!
Ontario wouldn’t be the first province to do so – other provinces have seen success with this approach.
B.C. and Quebec have used contracts with private clinics for years. The Alberta government also plans to expand the number of surgeries by private clinics, looking to reduce wait times.
John, if you’ve been receiving our emails for a while, you know that the Fraser Institute has been pushing for health care reforms for many, many years!
We regularly release studies showing that despite spending more on health care than most other developed countries with universal coverage, Canada has some of the lowest numbers of doctors, hospital beds, and medical technologies – and the longest wait times.
When it comes to health care, our mission is simple: to measure the performance of our system and explore ways to offer better universal health care for all Canadians.
These recent steps in the right direction made by provincial governments show that our work is having an impact!
And it’s the smart thing to do: private clinics have proven to help jurisdictions reduce wait times.
Consider Saskatchewan – in 2010, their wait between referral from a GP and receipt of care was 26.5 weeks. In response, the provincial government introduced several initiatives, including the use of contracts with private surgical centres.
As a result, Saskatchewan reduced its median wait to just 14.2 weeks by 2014 – the second-shortest in the country that year!
However, when the contracts ended, wait times in Saskatchewan crept back up, underscoring the need for larger reforms.
Larger scale reforms, such as changing the way health care is financed more broadly, require both federal and provincial changes.
Unfortunately, Ottawa has indicated no interest in reforming federal health regulations.
Clearly, we have more work to do!
John, can you help us do exactly that with a donation today?
Our work is funded entirely by our supporters – people like you.
Each dollar donated goes towards changing more hearts and minds, and improving our universal health care system for all Canadians!
Thank you so much for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Niels Veldhuis
President
The Fraser Institute
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