Almost 1 in 2 Canadians says health system needs major surgery

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of Canadian adults found that 55% of respondents believe the current health care system is sound and requires only few or minor changes. On the other side, 38% believe the system has strengths but also requires major surgery, and 7% feel the system required total restructuring. Albertans and Ontarians were most likely to think the system needs little or minimal change (69%), while residents of Quebec and BC (58% and 56%) were most likely to state that the system needs major change or a total overhaul.

Almost half of those polled (47%) think the quality of health care services has declined in the past 5 years, 13% think it has improved, and the remaining 40% think it has not changed. Those who feel the system has deteriorated blame funding cutbacks (26%), longer waiting times (22%), physician shortages (19%) and nurse shortages (7.6%).

Most Canadians think it is very important to retain each of the 5 principles in the Canada Health Act. However, the proportion who deemed the principle of public administration to be very important was, at 57%, notably lower than that for the principles of universality (86%), accessibility (81%), portability (81%) and comprehensiveness (77%).

Three-quarters of adult Canadians are willing to make some compromises to ensure that all Canadians have equal access to quality health care. The remaining 25% would approve of making some or all health services available according to a person's ability to pay, even if this affected equality of access.

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