BREAKING Slovak interior minister says 'lone wolf' has been charged with shooting prime minister
The Slovak interior minister said Thursday that a 'lone wolf' has been charged in the shooting that seriously wounded Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Two out of five Canadians say they were unable to access essential health-care services in the last six months, according to a new Angus Reid report.
The study, which surveyed nearly 3,500 Canadians and Americans combined, also found that Canadian confidence in our health-care system is currently lower than American confidence in theirs, with Americans less likely to report issues accessing care.
This data comes amid increasing reports of emergency department closures, backlogs for surgeries, long wait times and hospitals bleeding staff as Canada's health-care system struggles to maintain itself. Canada's universal health-care system has long been a source of national pride, but with the pandemic exacerbating existing staffing issues, experts say our system's cracks have gone ignored for too long.
This new study scored Canadians' responses and sorted them into three categories that reflected their level of access to care as a whole — those who had comfortable access, those who had some challenges accessing care, and those with chronic difficulty accessing care.
Just 15 per cent of Canadians surveyed fit into the comfortable access tier, while 31 per cent reported experiencing challenges and 29 per cent experienced chronic difficulty, researchers found.
The remaining 26 per cent of Canadians surveyed had not required health-care access during the six month period the survey scrutinized.
When applied to Canada's broader population, this could mean that up to 18.7 million Canadians could be experiencing difficulties accessing health care.
The damage to Canada's health-care system is also underlined by the survey data from Americans, who are currently much less likely to report suffering issues trying to access health care, according to the study.
When asked about their confidence level regarding being able to get care for an emergency, only 37 per cent of Canadians were confident they could access urgent care in a timely fashion, compared to 70 per cent of Americans surveyed.
It's important to note that the surveys focused on access to care, not on clinical outcome, and doesn't provide a measure for the quality of care that patients received.
The study is composed of data collected in two online surveys in August 2022 — one survey included 2,279 Canadians who are members of Angus Reid Forums, and the other included 1,209 Americans who are members of Angus Reid Forums USA. Angus Reid Forums is a public opinion research foundation operated online.
Specialist appointments or surgical procedures were the types of health care that Canadians had the most difficulty accessing — more than half of those who required this care had difficulty accessing it, and around five per cent reported it was impossible to receive the appointment or surgery they needed.
Diagnostic tests and non-emergency treatment were easier to access, but a high percentage still struggled, with 41 per cent of Canadians encountering difficulty accessing a test.
Younger people also have more barriers to accessing specialist appointments or obtaining a diagnostic test, the study found. Around 70 per cent of those who found it difficult or impossible to access a specialist appointment in the last six months were in the 18-to-34 age bracket.
The study also looked at the community impact beyond the individual.
Most Canadians know a friend or family member who has struggled with the health-care system recently — according to the data, nearly three out of four Canadians know at least one person who received inadequate medical care within the last six months.
Around 57 per cent of Canadians say their friends or loved ones have suffered long waits to get an appointment, and one third of Canadians surveyed reported that they knew someone who had a long wait for emergency care.
Half of Canadians said this inadequate care had serious health consequences for the loved one in question, the survey found.
Amid this turmoil, Canadian confidence in the health-care system appears to be plummeting, researchers found, with 61 per cent reporting that they were not confident they would be able to get timely access to aid in the event of an emergency.
The study noted that confidence is lowest in Atlantic Canada, where 27 per cent reported they weren't confident at all that emergency care would be timely, and 38 per cent reporting they were not that confident.
In contrast, the U.S. portion of the data found that the Americans surveyed were less likely to report difficulty accessing care and were more likely to be confident that they could access care in a timely fashion.
Canadians were almost three times more likely than Americans to say that a loved one couldn't get a diagnostic test, and were four times more likely to report that a loved one couldn't received surgery, the study reported. While 40 per cent of Americans surveyed found it “very easy” to access emergency care, just 13 per cent of Canadians said the same.
The comparison is striking because in the past, Canada has consistently outperformed the U.S. in rankings of health-care systems worldwide.
Even when Canada performed poorly compared to other high-income countries in a 2021 report by the Commonwealth Fund, it still scored significantly better than the U.S., whose private health-care system has long been criticized both internally and internationally for the financial burden it places on patients.
In this new study, researchers noted that although American health care is still largely a private, user-pay system which prioritizes the rich, recent efforts by U.S. President Joe Biden's administration have expanded health-care coverage, with the uninsured rate reaching an all-time low of eight per cent in the first quarter of 2022.
The Slovak interior minister said Thursday that a 'lone wolf' has been charged in the shooting that seriously wounded Prime Minister Robert Fico.
Although a global workers' treaty has been in force in Canada since January, an employment lawyer believes it won't do anything more to protect employees from violence and harassment.
The Saskatchewan RCMP wants you to know it’s not targeting drive-thrus to ticket people for using their fast food reward apps.
Auto technology has evolved and many newer cars use wireless key fobs and push-button starters instead of traditional metal keys. But that technology also makes things easier for thieves.
Air quality warnings are still in place for some areas of Western Canada, according to the latest forecasts.
Thousands of Canadians have been displaced as fires burn in Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba. Here are the latest updates.
With prosecutors' hush money case against Donald Trump barreling toward its end, their star witness will be back in the hot seat Thursday as defense lawyers try to chip away at Michael Cohen's crucial testimony implicating the former president.
Canada's transportation department had a UFO 'lead' who tried to 'quell' media interest and planned to meet with U.S. intelligence officials.
Regaining your focus requires you to be mindful of how you are using technology -- a daunting task if you consider the average American spends at least 10 hours a day on screens.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.