nationalized public health care was introduced in canada in 1966.
nationalized public health care was introduced in canada in 1966.
when was nationalized public health care introduced in canada?
1966
the first implementation of public hospital care in canada came at the provincial level in saskatchewan in 1947 and in alberta in 1950, under provincial governments led by the co-operative commonwealth federation and the social credit party respectively. the first implementation of nationalized public health care – at the federal level – came about with the hospital insurance and diagnostic services act (hids), which was passed by the liberal majority government of louis st. laurent in 1957, and was adopted by all provinces by 1961. lester b. pearson's government subsequently expanded this policy to universal health care with the medical care act of 1966.
medicare (canada)
the history of public health care clearly shows the global effort to improve health care for all. however, in modern-day medicine, real, measurable change has not been clearly seen, and critics argue that this lack of improvement is due to ineffective methods that are being implemented. as argued by paul e. farmer, structural interventions could possibly have a large impact, and yet there are numerous problems as to why this strategy has yet to be incorporated into the health system. one of the main reasons that he suggests could be the fact that physicians are not properly trained to carry out structural interventions, meaning that the ground level health care professionals cannot implement these improvements. while structural interventions can not be the only area for improvement, the lack of coordination between socioeconomic factors and health care for the poor could be counterproductive, and end up causing greater inequity between the health care services received by the rich and by the poor. unless health care is no longer treated as a commodity, global public health will ultimately not be achieved. this being the case, without changing the way in which health care is delivered to those who have less access to it, the universal goal of public health care cannot be achieved.
public health