Thousands of Canadians going abroad for medical treatment: study
Posted Oct 12, 2016 01:44:52 PM.
Last Updated Oct 12, 2016 04:35:27 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A new study released today by the Fraser Institute suggests 45,619 Canadians went outside the country for non-emergency medical treatment in 2015.
The study from the Vancouver-based think tank comes out days after US presidential candidate Donald Trump took a swipe at the Canadian health care system during a town-hall debate with Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.
Trump said when Canadians need a big operation, they go to the United States because of what he said was a “catastrophic” Canadian system in certain ways. The Fraser Institute study did not indicate how many Canadians went to the US for medical treatment, only that they went outside the country.
But Bacchus Barua with the Fraser Institute says the reasons why have nothing do with the health of our healthcare system. “One, there are actually fewer patients telling their physicians that they travelled for treatment, but the others we did have a little bit of a change in our methodology for estimating the number of procedures.”
The Republican candidate also accused Clinton of secretly plotting to implement a Canadian-style, single-payer health care system he said, “would be a disaster” if adopted in the United States.
The study says wait times are among the likely reasons some Canadians seek treatment elsewhere. Citing its own research, the Fraser Institute claims patients waited an average of 9.8 weeks for medically necessary treatment in 2015 after seeing a specialist.
Meantime, MPP Jeff Yurek is also PC Critic of Health in addition to a Member of the Standing Committee of Regulation and Private Bills. Yurek says the first thing to do in this situation is to stop the hostilities with doctors in our province.
“It’s been two years of vilifying doctors and making cuts to the healthcare system which is only increasing wait times,” says Yurek. “The second thing is to take a look at our economic situation in our province. We’re spending over a billion dollars a month on interest in our debt, and just think of how that money could be better spent in our healthcare system to improve wait times and access to services.”
Yurek adds that the government needs to look at the financial aspects to help alleviate wait times for patients.
“The government needs to start looking at the amount money not reaching the front line healthcare professionals and getting caught up in the different bureaucracies in the system, and freeing up that money, allowing it to go forward so people can access these services as quickly as possible.”
