Report: Thousands fled Canada for health care in 2011

[TheRainman]

A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the north have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States.
The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993.
Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded.
In 2011, Canadians enrolled in the nation’s government-dominated health service waited long periods of time for an estimated 941,321 procedures. As many as 2.8 percent of Canadians were waiting for treatment at any given time, according to the Institute.
“In some cases, these patients needed to leave Canada due to a lack of available resources or a lack of appropriate procedure/technology,” according to the Institute. “In others, their departure will have been 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.”
Increases in the number of patients leaving Canada for treatment were seen in seven of the ten Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
“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,” the report concluded.
“Others 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, disability, or death … or simply to avoid delay.”
Canada’s median wait time for treatment after consultation with a specialist also increased in 2011, from 9.3 weeks to 9.5 weeks. The Fraser Institute’s report concluded that the nation’s doctors don’t like the status quo any more than their patients..
“[P]hysicians themselves believe that Canadians wait nearly 3 weeks longer than what they consider is clinically ‘reasonable’ for elective treatment after an appointment with a specialist,” according to the report. (RELATED: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare, survey finds)
Each year the Institute conducts a survey asking doctors across 12 major medical specialties in Canada what percentage of their patients have received non-emergency care outside of Canada in the previous 12 month


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/11/re...#ixzz20N1G5ki7

What will all these canadians do once obamacare starts? Where will they go?

[Fay Wrinkle]

This year, a few hundred thousand intrepid American travellers will head to places like Thailand and Costa Rica, in search of something that they can’t find in the United States. They won’t be looking for Mayan ruins or ancient Buddhist temples, but something a bit more practical: affordable medical care. These medical tourists will be getting root canals, knee surgeries, and hip replacements at foreign hospitals. If health-care costs in the U.S. keep rising—and especially if Obamacare is overturned by the Supreme Court—more of us may soon be joining them.

[...]

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financ...#ixzz20NVXYxqc

[lynnifer]

I normally don't involve myself in conversations such as this ... and I can't explain BC ... but the rest of the provinces I can. Have you seen or read about their size and population?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population

It's the same answer to the question posited one hundred different ways. There is an allowance for travel via income tax. I travel 4hrs one way for quality health care in Toronto ... because they have more money and more equipment and a bigger population and therefore more experience.

I'd be interested to know a break-down of what surgeries were sought out of Canada. I'm guessing the majority were cosmetic, but I don't want to assume.

[Foolish Old]

Fleeing? RCMP in hot pursuit?

[xtravla]

is there a difference between fleeing and taking a trip? you are the rainman.

[christopher]

How I lost my fear of Universal Health Care