Study
| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.More than 52,000 Canadians left the country for medical care in 2014
In 2014, more than 52,000 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment outside Canada. Physicians in British Columbia reported the highest proportion of patients (in a province) receiving treatment abroad (1.6%). The largest number of patients estimated to have left the country for treatment were from Ontario (26,252).
Across Canada, neurosurgeons reported the highest proportion of patients (in a speciality) travelling abroad for treatment (2.6%). The largest number of patients (in a specialty) travelled abroad for internal medicine procedures (6,559).
One explanation for patients travelling abroad to receive medical treatment may relate to the long waiting times they are forced endure in Canada’s health care system. In 2014, patients could expect to wait 9.8 weeks for medically necessary treatment after seeing a specialist—3 weeks longer than the time physicians consider to be clinically “reasonable” (6.5 weeks).
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Bacchus Barua
Director, Health Policy Studies, Fraser InstituteBacchus Barua is Director of the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies. He completed his BA (Honours) in Economicsat the University of Delhi (Ramjas College) and received an MA in Economics from Simon Fraser University. Mr. Barua has conducted research on a range of key health-care topics including hospital performance, access to new pharmaceuticals, the sustainability of health-care spending, the impact of aging on health-care expenditures, and international comparisons of health-care systems. He also designed the Provincial Healthcare Index (2013), co-led the creation of Comparing Performance of Universal Health Care Countries (2016) and co-authored the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of wait times, Waiting Your Turn, for over a decade (2010–2022). In 2022, Bacchus was invited to provide testimony as part of a panel of witnesses for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (HESA). Mr. Barua is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and his articles have appeared in well-known news outlets including the National Post, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and forbes.com.… Read more Read Less… -
Feixue Ren
Feixue Ren is a former Economist at the Fraser Institute. She holds a M.A. in Economics from Lakehead University and aB.A. in Statistics from Hunan Normal University in China. She has co-authored an assortment of studies on fiscal and labour market policy issues.… Read more Read Less…
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