Uncontrolled, undetected internal bleeding, an emergency medicine “time bomb,” can kill within hours.
So, when Dr. Fraser Mackay saw a young woman recently with a minor shoulder injury from a fall who seemed in an inordinate amount of pain, his gut told him something was off.
Imagine finding out that your loved one has leukemia. Then imagine finding out that the cost of treating that cancer is so enormous that you could end up drowning in debt just to pay the medical bills.
Many readers might think this is a scenario only to be found in the United States. But this is a scenario currently facing Chris Sluman and his family in North Bay, and it is all because of an obscure government agency that no one really knows about.
Canada’s family doctor shortage: The public, and politicians, worry about it a lot.
Most everyone believes it’s a crisis that almost six million Canadians are without a family doctor, and waiting times are lengthening.
The solutions trotted out most frequently involve governments paying to expand medical schools to train more physicians, or luring more doctors to Canada from other countries.
Wait times for people seeking care at emergency departments across Ontario have dramatically increased over the past five years amid a “deepening Ontario hospital funding crisis,” according to a new report.
The study, published Monday by the left-leaning think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, found that 90 per cent of patients waited 4.5 hours for an initial assessment by a physician at a hospital emergency room in Ontario in 2024/2025, up from 2.7 hours in 2020-21. This, the report states, represents an alarming 67 per cent increase over a five-year period.
“Emergency department wait times are a canary in the coal mine for health system performance,” Andrew Longhurst, the author of the study, said at a news conference on Monday morning.
Medical assistance in dying now accounts for roughly one in 20 deaths in Canada, according to the latest government data. That makes it the country’s fifth-leading cause of death.
For patients facing severe illness and suffering, the option is framed as an act of compassion. But its rapid expansion raises uncomfortable questions about how government-run health systems respond to the reality of scarce public resources.
Caring for patients with complex, chronic or terminal conditions is among the most expensive obligations in any health system. That creates an inherent tension in systems where the government both finances care—and decides what care is worth covering.
Curt and Gwen Firestone live half the year in B.C. on Salt Spring Island and the other half in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
Besides the obvious draw of sunny weather, the pair, who are in their 80s, chose Mexico because they require timely access to medical specialists, something they say they can’t get at home.
Canada’s emergency doctors are demanding better protection against administrative harassment and bullying for speaking out about dangerous overcrowding and unreported deaths in the country’s emergency rooms.
Among other measures, the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians is calling for “effective and enforced” whistleblower protection, arguing they risk personal and professional persecution for calling out unsafe conditions that are putting lives at risk.
The quest for better health care is a national obsession in many countries, and an important issue for Canadian seniors. When it comes to spending money on health care, Canada is doing well compared to other developed countries.
Baumol’s cost disease. New to me.
Six days in an overflow stretcher. Beds in storage rooms. Patients dying in their seats.
No, we’re not describing an episode of HBO’s gritty medical drama The Pitt. These are real-life scenes playing out in Canada’s emergency rooms.
From Carbonear, N.L., where a man recently died of a heart attack during a 10-hour wait to see a doctor, to Calgary, where a woman pleaded “please don’t let me die” during the hours she bled onto a stretcher in the ER, hospitals are bursting at the seams as backlogs and access issues affect patient flow.
Prolonged wait times for surgery and medical care cost Canadian patients more than $4.2 billion in lost wages and reduced productivity last year, a new study suggests.
The 1.4 million Canadians who waited for medically necessary treatment in 2025 lost an estimated $3,043 each due to reduced wages and decreased productivity at work, according to a March 10 report from the Fraser Institute.
Two people have died in Canada after donating plasma at a chain of clinics that has been under scrutiny by federal inspectors for failing to keep accurate records, screen donors or maintain its machines.
While experts say the deaths are exceedingly rare, critics say Canada’s embrace of private companies to handle blood products reflects a “slow collapse of a system that has been the envy of the world”.
Everything in Canada is turning to shit.
Dr. Alecs Chochinov recently received a private message from an emergency medicine colleague who has been practising for more than a decade. “I’ve never been so despondent,” it said.
“That single doctor is speaking for many,” Chochinov said. “People are despondent. They’re scared that there are going to be bad outcomes and they’re going to feel responsible. But they don’t see any respite.”
Health care was looking grimmer by the day back in 2023 in a rural corner of western Canada.
Family doctors had retired or moved, starting a chain reaction that cut in half the number serving the 12,000 residents of the Alberta town of Stettler and its surrounding county, also called Stettler.
People with preventable problems, but without family doctors, sought help in the town hospital’s emergency room. Then the emergency room began shutting down on some days because of a doctor shortage, forcing the unlucky to drive 50 miles to the nearest city.
About 450 people came to a hastily called meeting at the hockey arena.
Eight out of 10 provinces do not require health-care providers to inform patients about expected or maximum recommended wait times for surgery, a new report says, noting Canadians continue to face long wait times.
“Every year, thousands of patients die while waiting for treatment in Canada,” said the report, titled “All Provinces Need Greater Transparency Around Life-Saving Surgery,” published on Feb. 19 by think tank SecondStreet.org.
Tommy Douglas, not dead enough. https://t.co/0O54m10VKn
— Katewerk (@katewerk) February 20, 2026
Canada’s health-care system is facing a worsening crisis, with half of Canadians reporting they either don’t have a family doctor or struggle to see the one they have, according to new data from the Angus Reid Institute.
The survey highlights a decade-long decline in access.
