De-centring medical expertise means fostering skillsets that reduce disparities in health outcomes. Medical expertise alone is great for those with social privilege, but not enough for the rest.
Surveying more than 5,500 nurses about the realities of their work lives highlights how a shortage of nursing staff could compromise Canadians’ ability to access safe, compassionate care.
In addition to asking health-care systems to prepare to end suffering of mental illness through Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), we must ask policymakers to support better lives for families.
Canada has spent billions on health-care software that does not even communicate province to province. Free and open-source software would be a technically superior and far less expensive option.
Not only is the health sector feminized, but women — particularly racialized women — are more likely to be in jobs at the low end of the pay scale, but that require prolonged contact with patients.
The shortage of family doctors affects not only patients, but the entire health-care system. A strong primary care foundation increases average lifespan, improves overall health and reduces costs.
A national procurement program for essential medicines could provide a principled, evidence-based solution to the current challenges facing a national pharmacare program in Canada.
Education has a role to play in addressing the shortage of family doctors. A new program is designed specifically for comprehensive, community-based family practice.
Each encounter that health-care students have with patients and families helps them understand real-world patient needs. That means all Canadians have a role in educating future health-care providers.
Now is the time to learn from the COVID-19 response through an action-oriented independent inquiry focused on accountability. Reforms to data generation, access and use are essential.
Recruiting internationally educated health workers is a key part of Canada’s proposed solution to the health worker crisis. But there are ethical questions about recruiting from foreign countries.
Bill C-7 has created ethical tensions between MAID providers and palliative care, between transparency and patient privacy, and between offering a dignified death rather than a dignified life.
People with long COVID report that their symptoms are dismissed or not treated seriously by health-care providers. This medical gaslighting not only prevents treatment but can cause stigma and shame.
Discontinuing expanded health-care funding will result in less prenatal care for uninsured patients, more health risks, higher costs to the health system, and moral distress for health-care providers.
Ambulance response times have not always met targets, but the alarming new pinch point in our health-care system is that there are no ambulances at all available to respond to calls.
U.K. health worker protests echo issues in Canada. They are also a harbinger of future labour disputes and systemic collapse if austerity, underinvestment and neglect of health workers continue.
At the dawn of Medicare, Saskatchewan’s community co-op clinics pioneered team-based, holistic care. Now, with the health system in crisis 60 years later, it may be time to return to that care model.