Canada has low number of doctors per capita, report finds

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Even if you do have a regular doctor, how easy is it to get a same- or next-day appointment with them?

A new study suggests Canada has just about the lowest number of physicians per capita among dozens of developed countries.

The Fraser Institute claims our country is 29th out of 33 high-income nations, with only 2.7 doctors per thousand people.

That is 20 per cent below the average for countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

By comparison, the report finds Germany has 4.1 physicians per thousand people and Australia has 3.5 doctors per thousand.

“Physicians play a crucial role in Canada’s health-care system, but compared to other developed countries, Canada has a low ratio of physicians to people,” says report co-author Steven Globerman, an international business professor at Western Washington University and senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

The right-leaning policy group is quick to point out Canada is also one of the highest spenders on universal healthcare.

Looking ahead, the think tank claims that even with recent measures to increase domestically and foreign-trained doctors in Canada, the number per capita will will only increase incrementally by the year 2030.

“Unless current trends are reversed, an increasing scarcity of doctors looms large in Canada’s future,” Globerman says.

“Policymakers should think now about how having relatively few doctors will affect Canadian patients and the health-care system more broadly.”

The report suggests solutions ranging from training more doctors to allowing nurse practitioners to take on simple procedures.

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