Study
| EST. READ TIME 1 MIN.More than 60,000 Canadians left the country for medical treatment in 2016
Leaving Canada for Medical Care, 2017
Summary
- In 2016, an estimated 63,459 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment outside Canada.
- Physicians in British Columbia reported the highest proportion of patients (in a province) receiving treatment abroad (2.4%). The largest number of patients estimated to have left the country for treatment was from Ontario (26,513).
- Across Canada, otolaryngologists reported the highest proportion of patients (in a specialty) travelling abroad for treatment (2.1%). The largest number of patients (in a specialty) travelled abroad for general surgeries (9,454).
- One explanation for patients travelling abroad to receive medical treatment may relate to the long waiting times they are forced endure in Canada’s health care system. In 2016, patients could expect to wait 10.6 weeks for medically necessary treatment after seeing a specialist—almost 4 weeks longer than the time physicians consider to be clinically “reasonable” (7.0 weeks).
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Feixue Ren
Feixue Ren is a former Economist at the Fraser Institute. She holds a M.A. in Economics from Lakehead University and aB.A. in Statistics from Hunan Normal University in China. She has co-authored an assortment of studies on fiscal and labour market policy issues.… Read more -
Yanick Labrie
Senior Fellow, Fraser InstituteYanick Labrie, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, is a health economist and public-policy consultant living in Montreal. He currentlyserves as an adjunct economist at HEC Montreal’s Healthcare Management Hub. Mr. Labrie’s career in health policy spans more than fifteen years. He has worked as an economist at the Montreal Economic Institute, the Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations (CIRANO), and was a lecturer at HEC Montréal’s Institute of Applied Economics. He authored or co-authored more than 40 research papers and studies related to health care and pharmaceutical policies. Many of his articles have appeared in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, La Presse, and Le Devoir, among other newspapers. He is frequently invited to participate in conferences and debates, and to comment on economic affairs in the media. He has been invited to give testimonies at numerous parliamentary commissions and working groups on a wide range of topics and in court cases as an expert witness. Yanick Labrie holds a master’s degree in economics from the Université de Montréal.… Read more