Canadians Escape Medical Shortcomings by Leaving the Country

What America really needs now, according to the progressive liberal Democrats, is a health care system just like Canada's. How many times have we all heard from the liberals that we must model our system after such a successful system as the one to our north. Oh wait there is one other one that the liberal progressive believes is front and center and that's the one in Cuba.

Now, how much better can it get then to use these two medical wonders as a guide for all of us? Ask just about any Democrat and they will be more then willing to tell you with much waving of the arms and raised voices how bad our system is and how wonderful the other ones are. But ask them if they will leave the this country and go to Canada to get treatment and they break out in a cold sweat while threatening to physically attack you for asking such a stupid question.

Leaving Canada for Medical Care 2011
Source: Nadeem Esmail, "Leaving Canada for Medical Care 2011," Fraser Institute, July/August 2012.

Among the consequences of poor access to health care in Canada is the reality that some Canadians will ultimately receive the care they require outside of the country. Some of these patients will have been sent out of country by the public health care system due to a lack of available resources or the fact that some procedures or equipment are not provided in their home jurisdiction, says Nadeem Esmail of the Fraser Institute.

Others, which are of more interest here, will have chosen to leave Canada in response to concerns about quality to avoid some of the adverse medical consequences of waiting for care such as worsening of their condition, poorer outcomes following treatment, or simply to avoid delay. Measuring the size of this population allows for comparative assessment of Canada's health system's quality.

•In 2011, a significant number of Canadians -- an estimated 46,159 -- received treatment outside of the country.
•This figure constitutes roughly 1 percent of all patients for non-emergency medical care.
•Increases between 2010 and 2011 in the estimated number of patients going outside Canada for treatment were seen in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
•Only Ontario saw a decrease in the number of patients seeking treatment outside of Canada.
•At the same time, the national median wait time for treatment after consultation with a specialist increased from 9.3 weeks in 2010 to 9.5 weeks in 2011.

Furthermore, the methodology that produced these figures likely underestimates the number of Canadians leaving the country to receive care.

•These numbers are based on specialist responses, which means that patients who leave Canada without consulting a specialist are not likely to be included in the count.
•The counts are also based on the number of procedures estimated to have been performed in Canada, which is less than the number of patients consulted and less than the number of Canadians who would have required treatment, including those who left Canada to seek it.

Clearly, many of those who left the country to receive care were driven by a desire to return more quickly to their lives, to seek out superior quality care, or perhaps to save their own lives or avoid the risk of disability.