OTTAWA - It's been seven years and billions of dollars, but Canada's health-care system has only made incremental progress toward goals set out for it in 2004.
That's the thinking of the Health Council of Canada, charged with evaluating progress on the 10-year, $41.3-billion health accord.
At the time, the document was called a "fix for a generation."
It was meant to restore federal funding to sufficient levels, allow governments to cut back on wait times and improve other elements of the health-care system.
But a new report coming this week will show that those goals have only been half-met, even as decision-makers start putting together a new plan for health care for the coming years.
The health council has said governments have reduced wait times in targeted areas, but at the expense of longer waits in emergency rooms.
The council also says it's troublesome that a shortage of doctors and nurses still exists and that there's no national drug plan.
