Switzerland’s universal health-care system delivers significantly better results than Canada’s in terms of wait times, access to health professionals like doctors and nurses, and patient satisfaction finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian policy think-tank.
“Despite its massive price tag, Canada’s health-care system lags behind many other countries with universal health care,” said Yanick Labrie, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and author of Building Responsive and Adaptive Health-Care Systems in Canada: Lessons from Switzerland.
The study highlights how Switzerland’s universal health-care system consistently outperforms Canada on most metrics tracked by the OECD.
In 2022, the latest year of available data, despite Canada (11.5 per cent of GDP) and Switzerland (11.9 per cent) spending close to the same amount on health care, Switzerland had 4.6 doctors per thousand people compared to 2.8 in Canada.
In other words, Switzerland had 64.3 per cent more doctors than Canada (on a per-thousand people basis).
Switzerland also had 4.4 hospital beds per thousand people compared to 2.5 for Canada—Switzerland (8th) outranked Canada (36th) on this metric out of 38 OECD countries with universal health care.
Likewise, 85.3 per cent of Swiss people surveyed by the CWF (Commonwealth Fund) reported being able to obtain a consultation with a specialist within 2 months.
By comparison, only 48.3 per cent of Canadians experienced a similar wait time.
Beyond medical resources and workforce, patient satisfaction diverges sharply between the two countries, as 94 per cent of Swiss patients report being satisfied with their health-care system compared to just 56 per cent in Canada.
“Switzerland shows that a universal health care system can reconcile efficiency and equity – all while being more accessible and responsive to patients’ needs and preferences,” Labrie said.
“Policymakers in Canada who hope to improve Canada’s broken health-care system should look to more successful universal health-care countries like Switzerland.”
Click here to read the report: Building Responsive and Adaptive Health-Care Systems in Canada: Lessons from Switzerland.
St Joseph’s has always been the bottom feeder hospital for most of my life in T.O.,so that is not a great example. As far as private Healthcare, one can definitely choose to pay out of pocket(private) in Canada. Unfortunately, private options are on the rise.
However, our health care system was built on the very idea thst you speak of, Healthcare for all, whether you can pay for it or not. When u introduce private it often poaches a lot of the much needed Healthcare professionals from the system, defeating the whole purpose of universal for all.
It’s not universal in Switzerland, they pay for their medical coverage through insurance out of pocket. Some insurances are cheaper, some are more expensive.
Switzerland also has a private healthcare, unlike Canada, where we don’t have a choice, bc the government thinks we are not human enough , so we don’t deserve to have a choice . In all developed countries peoples have a choice of going public or private, it’s a fundamental human right to be healthy. But in Canada, we don’t have this right, we are treated worse than cattle, as they have private veterinary services. Furthermore, I will not even comment on the “quality” of healthcare in Canada, and the state of ERs and hospitals. One walk through St. Joseph’s hospital in Toronto and you think it’s a World War 3 already.