Following up on Predrag Rajsic’s article today, “Time as a Price”, here are a number of illuminating charts generated from the StatsCan website:
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 105-3002.
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 105-3003
In other words, wait times for a visit with a specialist and non-emergency surgery have barely moved from 2003-2009. All this was taking place at the same time that health care expenditures were rising appreciably. On the whole, these increased by 47% from 2003-2009.
Where has all the money gone? Well, capital expenditures and repairs went up by 38% from 2003-2008. Meanwhile, average weekly earnings of health care workers rose by 22%. It seems that a good deal of the funds recently invested in our government run health care system have been used to enhance medical facilities and enlarge the pay cheques of doctors and nurses — but not into improved care for patients.
