Physician-Health System in Rural Canada Paper Example

Introduction

The main aim of this note is to inform the Minister of health that the current healthcare system is not meeting the demand of the public. There is a shortage of health physicians in all public hospitals. There are few nurses Most people in Canada are complaining about the quality of healthcare they receive even though they are paying the high cost of healthcare they receive. They are also complaining that there is a shortage of nurses, doctors, and other health professionals to attend to their health issues in time hence many people die because of doctors professional negligence. As a result, the public is willing to know if the Government can increase the number of health professional's especially physicians to improve the quality of healthcare in rural areas.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Background

Currently, the healthcare system of Canada is underfunded by the Government and therefore it cannot recruit and hire the number of healthcare professionals that can serve higher Canadian population (Irfan & Hameed, 2017). Healthcare system is, therefore, working very hard to raise funds through its functions to meet its financial demands, and this leads to high cost of healthcare in Canada. Due to this healthcare system of Canada lack both physical and human capital which it can use sufficiently to serve the general public. As a result, patients take a very long time before receiving healthcare.

Furthermore, the Canadian Government has imposed an equal tax on all classes of people which increases the high level of inequality. People in lower, middle and upper class pay the same charge which should be based on the ability of an individual to meet tax obligation. Also, the quality of healthcare also varies significantly from one person to the next depending on the ability to pay high-quality care. This makes some Canadians not to receive quality care as others. Finally, there is no competition in publicly funded hospitals as compared to private hospitals and this significantly affect the quality of care that the majority of Canadians receive.

Determinants of the Health Issue

Based on the current economic survey, the result shows that Canada is one of the countries that spend more on healthcare. It experienced an annual increase in the cost of healthcare which results in low Government revenues. This result in inadequate physical and human resource across Canada. This leads to variation in life expectancy because people cannot get quality healthcare. The result also showed that there is a high average wait time for patients waiting to receive healthcare in Canada which is estimated to be 5.7hours for emergency services. Significant injuries are reported to have an average waiting time between 7 to 9 hours. This, therefore, makes Canadian to receive low-quality care which results in deaths which can be avoided by the Government when they invest more in the healthcare system. According to economic theory, when a third party makes payment to the Government of Canada, it will not be easy for the same Government to control the cost of healthcare. It also indicates that any increase in the population and the level of consumption leads to a proportionate increase in spending which reduces Government Revenue. Also, the cost-benefit analysis also indicated that there is an increase in the cost of Canadian healthcare by 7% about GDP although there is an introduction in Medicare (Muir Gray, 1997). This result comes from both public and private healthcare settings which are financed by the state. The cost of healthcare increases because of the increase in tax which makes Canadians have a meager disposable income which is insufficient to fund quality healthcare in private hospitals. Tax is also imposed on cigarettes, and this also reduces the number of people smoking with the aim of increasing Government revenues. This is an indication that the Government of Canada is heavily depending on tax for its income.

The Government also created Federal provincial, the national share of healthcare spending also increases federal funding's which increases the creation of national wealth and also increase the cost of receiving healthcare services (Holm, 2000). The Government of Canada does not impose cost effective tax on its people, and this does not allow the Government to provide adequate resources in the healthcare system to support Canadians. At the same time, Medicare in Canada is also not cost effective because it is not structured correctly thus increasing the fluctuation of physical and human capital across Canada.

The introduction of pharma care in Canada also increases the Government expenditure because it requires more finance to operate efficiently. Because of this, there are more people demanding treatment in public hospitals while the state has to reimburse the money they use for treatment. The Government cannot also develop a tax system that promotes equity, and this makes some people suffer more than others because they remain with very little disposable income which they cannot use to get quality healthcare in private hospitals (Milcent, 2018). Finally, there is a variation in the quality of healthcare that Canadian receive from the healthcare system and this reduces life expectancy to below 70 years.

Stakeholders

The healthcare system has various stakeholders including patients, family members, healthcare professionals, health policy makers, advocacy groups and even the Government. All these stakeholders are affected either positively or negatively by the shortage of physicians. The shortage of physicians affects patients negatively as they cannot receive high quality care in public hospitals and this makes the cost of receiving quality medical care high. Because there are inadequate facilities in public hospitals, it is very difficult to prevent some diseases within the rural areas and by the time they are seeking medical care the patient will have developed severe medical problem. The reduction in the quality of life is also there because most people cannot afford quality healthcare. People always adapt to live in poor conditions and sometimes accept death as something that cannot be avoided. Because of that it is impossible to carry out routine medical checkup as there are no god medical facilities. Patients take very many hours waiting in long queues to get treatment.

It is the role of healthcare professionals to provide healthcare services to patients without discriminating some. Since quality matters in every healthcare service and it comes with adequate healthcare facilities and professionals, it cannot be achieved in rural areas. This is because there are some patients who will be discriminated against because they are either coming from an ethnic group which is not dominant in Canada.

Ethical and Legal Considerations

In Canada there is healthcare act that guarantee every citizen to receive high quality care. The law requires the government to protect the health of every citizen, promote and restore health of its people. It also advocates for the provision of medical facilities to its citizen through building hospitals closer to people. This provision is important in ensuring that all Canadians are able to access healthcare services. The healthcare Act also require the general public to receive quality healthcare at affordable price and this gives al the citizen to have a right of receiving quality care.

There are healthcare ethics which include respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. These principles require physicians to work according to the direction of the patient and before a physician start treating the patient, it is his duty to seek the consent of the patient first before taking any medical procedure. This is according to the principle of respect for autonomy. The principle of Beneficence allows the physicians to carry out any procedure according to his will that can benefit the patient. It encourages the patient to allow the physician to do anything that can help him of her receive quality care without harm. The principle of justice, require healthcare professionals not to use any personal opinion while carrying out any procedure. They must not his medical profession to harm the patient but should treat all patient equally. Because of physician shortage, all these principles are not being applied properly and this leads to low quality healthcare in rural areas. The shortage of physicians does not allow for proper management of patients and this lead to unethical practices in most healthcare facilities in rural areas.

Possible Solutions

The above result shows that the healthcare system has very many challenges that The Government should address to improve quality of care for its people. For this to be achieved, it is essential for the Government to reduce tax imposed on Medicare facilities to increase the disposable income of most people to allow the afford quality healthcare. Also, the Government should also tax its people according to their ability. This will increase equality level so that every citizen can have adequate income to use. It is also recommended when the state increases financial allocation to the ministry of health. This will help the department to acquire sufficient human and physical resources it requires to offer high-quality healthcare services. This can be achieved by sponsoring the training of many health officers in the country. As a result, there will be more trained health officers in the state. Finally, the government of Canada should also implement a wealth tax which can only work for people with a net income of more than 1.5M CAD. This is essential in promoting equality by bringing people of lower, middle and upper class together.

References

Holm, C. E. (2000). Economic Models for Physician-Health System Partnerships. Journal of Healthcare Management, 45(2), 78-81. doi:10.1097/00115514-200003000-00003

Irfan, M., & Hameed, I. A. (2017). Deep learning based classification for healthcare data analysis system. 2017 International Conference on Behavioral, Economic, Socio-cultural Computing (BESC). doi:10.1109/besc.2017.8256396

Milcent, C. (2018). The Rise of Violence as a Result of Inefficiency in the Healthcare System. Healthcare Reform in China, 171-190. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69736-9_8

Muir Gray, J. (1997). Employing more doctors in a health care system did not result in fewer admissions. Evidence-based Healthcare, 1(2), 38. doi:10.1016/s1462-9410(05)80042-7