CANADA — The number of Canadians who are confident in the country’s health-care system has dropped over the past year and a half, a new study says.
Sixty-seven per cent of Canadians are “very confident” or “moderately confident” that Canada’s health-care system could provide help if they were facing an unexpected medical condition, down 10 points from a similar poll done in Oct. 2021, according to a new Research Co. poll released last week.
In Ontario, confidence in health care ranked at 63 per cent, in comparison to 72 per cent in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 71 per cent in Alberta, 68 per cent in Quebec and 67 per cent in British Columbia.
One in five Canadians say the country’s health care works well and would only require minor changes to improve the system.
On the other hand, 56 per cent of Canadians surveyed believe there are some good things in health care, while 17 per cent believe the system is so terrible that it would need to be rebuilt from the ground up.
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“In August 2020, 30% of Canadians believed the health care system only needed minor modifications. This year, only 20% feel the same way,” Mario Canseco, president of Research Co., said in a news release.
Thirty-four per cent of Canadians perceive a shortage of health care professionals, including doctors and nurses to be the biggest problem the country is facing in health care, while 23 per cent think long wait times is the main issue.
Meanwhile, 31 per cent of Ontarians surveyed also think a shortage of doctors and nurses is the main problem. The proportion rises to more than half for Atlantic Canadians at 52 per cent, 39 per cent for those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, 37 per cent in B.C., and 30 per cent for Quebec.
Seventy-eight per cent of the country feel the government cutting health care funding to reduce the country’s debt in the latest budget was the wrong move, and 50 per cent don’t believe private sector health care is the right move either.
The online study’s results were conducted from Apr. 16 to 18, among 1,000 adults in Canada. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
