Canada - World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

4. Physical and human resources
The non-financial inputs into the Canadian health system include buildings,
equipment, information technology and the health workforce. The ability
of any health system to provide timely access to quality health services
depends not only on the sufficiency of physical and human resources but also
on finding the appropriate balance among them (Romanow, 2002). Both the
sufficiency and the balance of resources need to be adjusted continually by
F/P/T governments in response to the constantly evolving technology, health
care practices and health needs of Canadians.
From the mid-1970s until 2000, capital investment in hospitals declined.
Small hospitals were closed in many parts of Canada and acute care services
were consolidated. Despite recent reinvestments by provincial and territorial
governments in hospital stock, in particular in medical equipment, imaging
technologies and ICT, the number of acute care beds per capita has continued to
fall, in part a result of the increase in day surgeries and discharges. While most
of Canada’s supply of advanced diagnostic technologies is roughly comparable
to levels in other OECD countries, it scores poorly in terms of its effective use
of ICT relative to other high-income countries.
After a lengthy period in the 1990s when the supply of physicians and nurses,
as well as other public health care workers, contracted because of government
cutbacks, the health workforce has grown since 2000. The number of private
sector health professionals has seen even more substantial growth during this
period. Medical and nursing faculties have expanded in order to produce more
graduates. At the same time, there has been an increase in the immigration of
foreign-educated doctors and nurses and lower emigration to other countries
such as the United States.
4. Physical and human resources