Inequalities In The Canadian Healthcare System

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The Canadian healthcare system is like a piece of Swiss cheese. In our healthcare system, several pitfalls and holes exist that those in the healthcare system find themselves falling into. Those include long wait times in our hospitals and emergency departments for elective and non-elective surgeries or other emergency procedures, staffing shortages in our hospitals, and overtesting. However, there are a few ways that we can fix our broken system. For example, if the higher-ups in Canada were to implement a non-profit, free-of-charge telemedicine or telehealth network for all Canadians, we would be one step closer to fixing some of the inequalities in our healthcare system, thus fulfilling the three branches of the Triple Aim. Additionally, …show more content…
In Canada, the healthcare of Indigenous peoples is gravely mishandled, stemming from historical issues of the past, such as colonialism by the French and English settlers and a Residential School System that bears a legacy of abuse and mistreatment towards Indigenous children and young adults. Due to these historical injustices, Indigenous peoples are more likely than other Canadians to experience persistent poverty, food insecurity, and barriers to housing and education, which are crucial contributors to chronic illnesses and other health challenges (Canadian Medical Association, 2023). In other words, these issues are social determinants of health, which the Canadian Medical Association defines as “social and economic circumstances that influence the health of individuals and communities” (Canadian Medical Association, 2013, as Cited in Wisniewski, 2024b). Apart from systematic inequalities, Indigenous peoples deal with a whole host of other problems in our healthcare system, including how there is a wide gap in the access to healthcare between the First Nations population who live on reserves compared to the Indigenous population living off reserves. As Dr. Martin writes, “For on-reserve First Nations and Inuit communities, the federal government has traditionally financed and delivered health services. At the same time, First Nations peoples and Inuit [tend to be] covered under provincial and territorial Medicare plans. [These inadquacies] can create divided systems of care in which access to, and the continuity of, care can be problematic.” (Martin, 2018, p. 24 & 25). Therefore, as we can see, the Indigenous peoples of Canada are very much treated as second-class citizens when it comes to the Canadian healthcare
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