A new national survey has found that 63 per cent of Canadians describe health care in their province as being in a state of crisis, while 55 per cent believe the system has gotten worse over the past five years.
Article content
The research, which was conducted by Abacus Data and commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition, also noted that these concerns cross political lines, with a majority of Conservative (58 per cent) and NDP (54 per cent) supporters believing the system has become worse. Nearly half of Liberal supporters (49 per cent) share the same opinion.
Overall, 91 per cent of Canadians are concerned about public health care. And a separate survey, conducted by ResearchCo, looked into the possible reasons why.
In this survey, 31 per cent of Canadians say a shortage of doctors and nurses is the biggest problem facing the health care system, while 28 per cent cite long wait times.
Article content
Bureaucracy and poor management is third on the list of concerns (12 per cent), followed by inadequate resources and facilities (11 per cent).
Article content
This comes after a recent report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information revealed that hundreds of thousands of sick and injured Canadians are spending 48 hours or longer in swamped emergency departments.
The report illustrated intensifying wait times in short-staffed hospitals, with data showing that in 2024-25, 7.7 per cent of emergency visits (1.2 million) involved someone leaving without being assessed by a doctor, while one in 10, or 180,000 people, spent two days or more in emergency before they were moved to a ward bed or the operating room.
Article content
In the ResearchCo survey, 20 per cent feel Canada’s health care system has so much wrong with it that it needs to be completely rebuilt. However, the same proportion believe Canada’s health care system works well and only minor changes are needed to make it work better.
Article content
Article content
And 70 per cent feel “very confident” or “moderately confident” that Canada’s health care system would be there to provide the help and assistance that they would need if they faced an unexpected medical condition or disease.
