Canadian health care is falling short for its youngest patients
Imagine your child, niece, nephew or young neighbour suddenly fell ill and needed care. Are you confident the care they’d receive today would be the quality our kids deserve?
Polling shows Canadians support improving healthcare for our children and believe our health system should be prioritizing them. But copious research, and testimonials from countless parents, clinicians and health advocates shows that our health system is failing to meet their needs.
These challenges are exacerbated by geography, rising medical complexity and social-economic pressures faced by our vast Canadian population.
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Children’s Healthcare Canada conference in St. John’s, Newfoundland where I heard from Canadian health leaders and clinicians about the issues they’re facing and, more importantly, the solutions they’re proposing.
We have great leaders, researchers, and clinicians in this country. Despite the difficult and trying years since the onset of the pandemic, this group has led with the belief that there is a better way to ensure that kids in Canada get the right health care when they need it.
To achieve this, they need the public’s support to push policy makers to make the right investments. Ones that will allow today’s Canadian kids to grow into tomorrow’s healthy and mentally resilient adults.
The investment needed to adequately address the gap in health funding for children is both a moral and economic imperative.
By 2040, the population of children in Canada is expected to be approximately 9.2 million. Yet Canada is underspending on children’s healthcare compared to peers like the UK, France and Sweden.
We’re spending at 1.68% of GDP on our children’s healthcare.
This compares to roughly 3.7% for our peers.
This underfunding results in increased wait times for surgeries and access to health care for children, and is seen across both mental and physical health services.
Research from 2018, the most recent data available, shows that only about one-third of children received their non-emergent surgeries within the wait time guidelines.
Experts believe this number is even worse today, following the challenges triggered by the pandemic.
Both the primary and acute pediatric care systems are under intense pressure at our current population growth rates. It is critical that we strategically evaluate how we fund, research and deliver care to this population at this juncture.
Key target outcomes should be at the core of federal and provincial strategies to address these pressures and meet the care needs of children today and into the future.
These outcomes should be:
- Primary care access for all children;
- The ability for children to receive their required care within target wait times;
- A resilient workforce available within the pediatric system;
- A data system that lets us know the state of our system, so policy makers can make responsive investments to right-size health delivery for kids as needs evolve and;
- Data sharing and transparency that allows researchers, clinicians, and innovators to bring top-quality care to Canadian children.
The costs of inaction are potent and significant, which has led to The Investment in Children's Healthcare report emphasizing the need to invest in children's healthcare and address the long delays in accessing essential services.
Currently, it is estimated that $4 billion is spent annually due to delays in mental health services alone.
There is a growing prevalence of anxiety and depression among children and youth, particularly among equity seeking groups. Early investments in mental health could save Canada $28 billion annually through preventative approaches to treatment.
The report also highlights the issue of delays in surgical interventions, which cost the healthcare system $44.6 million annually.
The silver lining is that among the various experts and participants at last week’s conference, there was broad alignment on what needs to be done.
The experts in the room want policy makers and funders at all levels to work strategically — and together — to make sure there are timelines and measurable progress towards achieving the above outcomes.
To do this, they believe governments must commit to dedicated funding envelopes federally and provincially-targeted at building capacity across the continuum of care. Further, robust data and tools are absolutely necessary to understand where we are today so we can measure progress on the strategic goals that are set out.
The opportunities that exist in this space are exciting, with the advent of advancements in genomics, research into rare diseases and advancements in technologies and AI, we are unlocking new modalities and innovations in care for kids. However, it is only by working together as parents, policy makers, researchers, clinicians, health leaders and community members that we will be able to answer the initial question set out at the beginning of this piece.
Next time someone asks you if that child in your life will receive the quality of care that they deserve, let’s make sure we’ve done what we can so we can say “yes.” Our children depend on it.
---
Elyse Banham, Healthcare Strategy and Transformation at Deloitte Canada