Health-care capacity has cost Canada economically amid pandemic: report
Global News
According to the Global Health Security Index, Canada ranks 41st out of 137 countries when it comes to health-care capacity.
Canada’s health-care capacity ranks among the worst of its peers and is a factor in economic losses during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a CIBC report.
The report, titled “Low hospital capacity in Canada: A continued economic risk as Covid becomes endemic,” highlights that Canada has one of the worst health-care capacities among developed countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
According to the Global Health Security Index, Canada ranks 41st out of 137 when it comes to capacity.
Canada’s capacity was already being strained prior to the pandemic in 2019 — and has caused Canada to implement more and stricter restrictions than other countries, resulting in less economic activity, according to the report.
COVID-19-related hospitalization per one million of the population in the U.S. and U.K. were four and five times higher than in Canada, respectively, but our system was still pushed to its limits during the second wave of COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, the report said.
“Simply put, we reached capacity at levels that many other countries consider to be acceptable,” the report states.
Tal sees the pandemic as a “wake-up call” for Canada to invest in its health-care capacity to better handle COVID-19 as an endemic.
“We have to increase capacity, we have to make it a priority,” he said.