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April 29, 2015

Most Canadians expect the health-care system to fail them when they need it most, suggests a new Nanos poll exclusive to Postmedia Network. And who can blame them? say many health-care advocates in Southwestern Ontario. “People are frustrated. The health-care system is beyond failing. It has failed,” said Michelle Gatt, a seniors advocate in London. “We used to be seen as a leader in health care in the world. Now, we can’t even make the top 10.” Canada’s health care is like an old bicycle that’s been broken for years, said Kelly Meloche, a Windsor businessperson who helps Canadians get health care across the border.

“We just keep trying to ride the broken bike,” she said. “It’s grim.” Nearly three-quarters of Canadians don’t think they or their loved ones will receive the “comfort and support” they want and expect when facing a life-threatening illness or death, the poll commissioned by think-tank Cardus found. The poll findings show the need for most Canadians to think of an end-of-life plan before they’re forced to and when it may be too late, said Ray Pennings, executive vice-president of Cardus. “Lots of worthwhile things are being done, but we are still in a situation where 75% of Canadians are saying they want to die at home, surrounded by their natural caregiver, and 70% end up dying in hospital,” said Pennings, due to release a related report on end-of-life care Wednesday. The issue of end-of-life care will only become greater as more baby boomers get older, Pennings said. Canada simply didn’t prepare for that wave of seniors, said Gatt, whose business, Seniors Access, helps families seeking care for their elderly relatives. “We’ve sat back and thought of health care in terms of four-year (political) terms instead of a long-term vision. There’s a lack of planning and cohesive policy.”

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, The Associated Press  08.19.2015

WASHINGTON - A new poll finds that Americans strongly support government action to control prescription drug costs, regardless of their political affiliation.The 2016 presidential candidates continue to spar over President Barack Obama's 5-year-old law that expanded coverage for the uninsured. But the latest survey by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that the public is moving on to other health care issues.Overall, 72 per cent say the cost of prescription medications is unreasonable.

BMJ 2015; 351 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h4010 (Published 22 July 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;351:h4010

Michael McCarthy

As the 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid approaches, a new poll has found strong public support for both US government health insurance plans.The survey,1 conducted by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, found that 77% of respondents considered Medicare a “very important” program—a similar proportion to the 73% who considered US military and defense programs very important. A somewhat smaller but substantial majority, 63%, said that they considered Medicaid to be very important.The two health programs were signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on 30 July 1965. Medicare, a …

New poll shows a large number of Canadians do not take all their medications as prescribed due to financial difficulties and also finds overwhelming support for a national pharmacare program. Vancouver (16 July 2015) — A new poll, conducted by Angus Reid Institute and the Mindset Foundation, has found that a significant, and increasing, number of Canadians cannot afford medications being prescribed to them, resulting in many people not taking the dosage recommended by the doctor. The survey also found that 91% of Canadians support a national pharmacare program.

Edmonton Journal Mon Aug 18 2014

Canada's baby boomers fear their golden years will be anything but rosy. A strong majority of Canadians aged 45 and older are anxious about their financial future and their ability to pay for uninsured prescription drugs and other health expenses, a new poll finds. Eight in 10 aren't convinced they will be able to find or afford a decent home or longterm care should they need it, according to the Canadian Medical Association's annual "report card" on health. "We should not accept that a country as prosperous as Canada has such a large portion of its population living in fear for the future as they age," said outgoing CMA president Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti. Many of those polled are drawing from their own personal experience of caring for aging parents, "and baby boomers are not going to accept the level of care" that they see being delivered to their loved ones, Francescutti said in an interview. "There are a lot more of us coming down the pipeline (but) this system is not oriented toward taking care of people who are living longer."

Nearly three-quarters (73.3 per cent) of B.C.'s care aides say they are forced to rush through basic care for the elderly and disabled, according to a Viewpoints Research survey commissioned by the Hospital Employees’ Union. The poll of HEU care aide members paints an alarming picture of the pressures faced by those who deliver the bulk of personal care to nursing home residents, home care clients and, increasingly, to hospital patients. - Backgrounder - 

03/19/2015

WASHINGTON - With a decision due by summer in a Supreme Court case that could unravel President Barack Obama's health care law, a new poll finds many Americans have heard nothing about the case. But when the potential fallout is explained, most say it would hurt the country and they would look to Congress or the states to fix it.

March 24, 2015

Focus group report points to widening urban-rural divide If Premier Paul Davis is looking to make cuts in the upcoming budget, he’d do well to avoid slashing spending on health care, according to polling information provided to the premier’s office.

North Bay Nugget Sat Apr 2 2016

The president and CEO of the North Bay Regional Health Centre disputes the results of a poll about employee safety released Friday. In a prepared statement, Paul Heinrich said he is "disappointed in the relentless nature of the Canadian Union of Public Employees/Ontario Council of Health Union's efforts to position our organization and our staff negatively." Heinrich said the campaign "is not based on fact and is harmful to our staff and their care of our patients."

The CUPE/OCHU poll indicated that 67 per cent of hospital staff who took part in the Union Calling poll this week do not believe the hospital is doing enough to protect employees from violence in the workplace, and that 72 per cent have experienced physical violence in the past year. Heinrich said the health centre conducts an "organizationwide staff survey" annually, with 75.5 per cent of staff reporting "my organization takes effective action to prevent violence in the workplace," while "73.7 per cent of staff report my workplace is safe."

The survey of 934 Canadians found that only 56.4 per cent of respondents who had a close relative use long-term care in the past 12 months rated the experience positively, substantially lower than the 72.6-per-cent who gave health care in general a positive rating.

"Canada's long-term care system is too complex and care providers and families are expected to do too much with too little," Silas said.

A large majority of respondents identified shortages in the availability of both home care (77.6 per cent) and long-term care services (78.5 per cent) as major problems facing health care in Canada.

Toronto Star Sat Aug 27 2016

Preparations are underway for a milestone summit this fall that could be a defining moment for Canadian quality of life in the 21st century. Ottawa appears determined to overhaul Canada's $219-billion health-care industry. It is keen to use the once-in-a-decade expiry of the Health Accord as the opportunity for reform. The Health Accord is the means by which Ottawa injects funds into Medicare with health-care transfers to the provinces and territories, and renegotiation of a new accord has consumed several months.

At this historic moment, the feds are prepared to be the prime architect of change, if balky provinces and territories put up their usual stubborn resistance to it. Provinces and territories have consistently demanded more money from Ottawa with no strings attached. They denounce specific uses of the funds as a federal intrusion on their bailiwicks. But as Jane Philpott, the federal health minister, said earlier this week, "There has never been a major development in the history of health care in Canada where the federal government was not there." Indeed.

July 21, 2016

Health Minister Jane Philpott saying that pharmacare is not part of her mandate

The Canadian Press reports, "Quebec's health minister says the federal government has indicated it plans to let the annual increase in provincial health transfers fall to half its current level by the end of the year. ...Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott would only say that the transfer provides a stable funding base and that any additional cash would be focused on priority areas like home care and mental health." Trudeau's first budget, delivered in March 2016, stated that health transfers would increase by 2.8 per cent in 2017-18, which is below the 3 per cent minimum promised by the Conservatives.

March 28, 2016

By Vassy Kapelos

But the budget left health care advocates like Adrienne Silnicki, with the Canadian Health Coalition, wanting more.

This report reviews the state of Canadian public opinion on healthcare, focusing on trends over the past five years. It combines a discussion of public opinion with an analysis of media content on healthcare issues.

reviewing results from all recent and readily available commercial polling on healthcare

content analysis of more than 100,000 articles on healthcare in major Canadian English- and French-language dailies from the past 15 years

Ontarians are worried about the economy, but a majority would not support the Liberal government’s plans to make deep cuts to public services

the public overwhelmingly support increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthy

90% of Ontarians support a new tax on individuals earning over $500,000 annually, 83% support increasing taxes on banks and the financial industry, 81% support increased corporate taxes, and a plurality of 47% support a new “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions

globeandmail.com Mon Aug 19 2013

Byline: ANDRÉ PICARD

Canadians have little confidence in the ability of the health-care system to meet the needs of a burgeoning number of seniors and they are looking to government to shift their priorities and come up with a coherent plan. That's the message that emerges from a new poll commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association. "The anxiety Canadians have about health care in their so-called golden years is both real and well-founded," said Anna Reid, outgoing president of the CMA. Nationwide, three in five respondents said they believed there would not be sufficient hospital beds, long-term care and home-care services to meet demand in their golden years. However, there are significant regional differences. In Quebec, for example, 56 per cent of those polled said the health system is ready for the so-called grey tsunami, compared to 31 per cent in Atlantic Canada.

National Post Thu Sep 18 2014

"It really brings an unpredictable variable to the last week of the campaign because issues that are personal to people, that are emotional could motivate them to go vote, whatever side of the issue they're on," said J.P. Lewis, an assistant professor of politics at the University of New Brunswick Saint John. The Liberals have an 11-point lead in the polls over the incumbent Conservatives, with 44.3% support Wednesday compared to the Conservatives 33.7%, according to poll aggregation site threehundredeight.com. Until recently, the campaign had been a "one note" affair focusing on shale gas extraction in the province by way of hydraulic fracking - the Conservative government sees it as the key to economic rebirth, while the Liberals would call a moratorium on fracking until more environmental assessment is done. Mr. Gallant was criticized by abortion- rights activists this year when he suggested much the same approach for abortion - a close study of barriers before discussion of repealing current regulations. "We're not against a study, we're just against any delay," said Wendy Robbins, past-president of the N.B. Women's Liberal Commission and current member of the N.B. Liberal party and advocate for greater abortion access. Mr. Gallant is being targeted with the issue because he's the front-runner, she said. The provincial New Democratic Party and the Greens say a repeal of the abortion regulation is the first thing they'd do if elected.

An alarming new poll finds that Canadians are overwhelmingly concerned about the ability of Canada's long-term care system to care for seniors when living at home is no longer possible. More than 9 in 10 Canadians are concerned that patients are waiting too long for placement into long-term care homes; that staffing levels are not adequate; and that there will not be the capacity to provide the level of care needed by seniors with dementia in long-term care homes.

The poll, commissioned by Nanos Research for the Canadian Alliance for Long-Term Care (CALTC) at the end of July, was released as leaders from Canada's long-term care sector met in Charlottetown to develop strategies on how to raise awareness of the challenges facing seniors in long-term care in Canada.

less than 2 in 10 Canadians in all categories believe that Canada is prepared for the growing needs of seniors who need long-term care, especially those with dementia.