Backlogs persist in Canada’s healthcare system, and the question is why?

BY PAUL JUNOR

There have been on-going concerns and questions regarding the backlogs that continue to persist in Canada’s healthcare system. Canada’s health-care system is under siege. The country is still grappling with an acute crisis in our hospitals stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic while the slow-moving quagmire caused by the country’s aging population threatens to become a larger disaster. So the question is, can our system handle it?

An Ontario 360 paper, which was published in early 2022, informed us that there was an “invisible waitlist.” This list was comprised of people who had to forgo their appointments, or never showed up for them because they thought that the healthcare system could not cater to them during the pandemic. The paper notes, “This invisible waitlist could be a time bomb, as diagnosis happens later and preventive treatments go undelivered, creating serious health problems for Ontarians later in life.” The paper notes there are some serious long-term implications of this.

Furthermore, it was noted that Canadians are reading about the acute crises at hospitals and staffing shortages at medical facilities. Everything that isn’t urgent gets delayed and the system gets increasingly backed up. Some Ontarians have been in line for more than two years and, even now, have little prospect of seeing an operating room any time soon.

The Ontario government has responded to this backlog by investing almost a billion dollars. It anticipates that it will be able to clear more than 200,000 surgeries and procedures in 2022-2023 by offering incentives to hospitals. There was widespread attention focused on the announcement that private clinics will be able to perform publicly covered surgeries, which is known as “private delivery.” It was in August 2022 that Doug Ford announced in the Ontario Legislature, “We can’t do the same status quo, the status quo has been broken. We’re going to deliver health care in a different fashion.”

The lack of qualified medical professionals such as doctors and nurses available to deliver Canada’s healthcare services have been a major concern even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that foreign-trained doctors have to pass seven different disciplinary exams prior to obtaining a residency position in order to qualify to work is a major obstacle. Many doctors from abroad often have to resort to driving taxis and doing menial jobs because of these seemingly insurmountable barriers they face.

Furthermore, if one of the seven exams failed, which cost $3,000 each, and then he or she is considered to fail the full examination and has to repay the same fee to write it again. This process could be repeated several times until the candidate after spending thousands of dollars and not passing the seven examinations eventually gives up.

One observer notes, “This is the organized cabal’s intentional way to prevent more doctors from qualifying to work in Canada and allow only their racial young to qualify to work in North America/Canada. Not much effort by the Government there.”

There is no easy way to solve the lack of healthcare professionals in Canada. The critics note, “There is no fast support for aspiring, foreign doctors to start working in Canada (Ontario). It’s not just racism but a wealthy business-oriented cabal’s spending here, and the government surely, cannot be so dumb about it.”