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The health and wellness system includes the delivery of health care as well as the prevention of disease and injury and the promotion of health and healthy living. The Health Authorities Act establishes roles and responsibilities of the Department, the Nova Scotia Health Authority, and the IWK Health Centre.
- Overview
- On this page
- About Medicare
- Federal funding for health care
- Accessing health care services
Learn about Canada's health care system, including Medicare, funding, accessing health care services and delivery.
Medicare is a term that refers to Canada's publicly funded health care system. Instead of having a single national plan, we have 13 provincial and territorial health care insurance plans. Under this system, all Canadian residents have reasonable access to medically necessary hospital and physician services without paying out-of-pocket.
Roles and responsibilities for health care services are shared between provincial and territorial governments and the federal government.
The provincial and territorial governments are responsible for the management, organization and delivery of health care services for their residents.
The federal government is responsible for:
•setting and administering national standards for the health care system through the Canada Health Act
•providing funding support for provincial and territorial health care services
Delivering health care services to specific groups
We provide certain direct health care services to some population groups, including: First Nations people living on reserves Inuit serving members of the Canadian Forces eligible veterans inmates in federal penitentiaries some groups of refugee claimants
Other federal health-related functions
We are responsible for the regulation of products, such as: food consumer products pharmaceuticals cosmetics chemicals pesticides medical devices radiation-emitting devices like cellphones The federal government also supports: health research health promotion and protection disease monitoring and prevention The government also provides tax support for health-related costs: tax credits for: disability medical expenses caregivers and disabled dependents tax rebates to public institutions for health services deductions for private health insurance premiums for the self-employed
Canadians most often turn to primary health care services as their first point of contact with the health care system.
In general, primary health care:
•delivers first-contact health care services
•coordinates patients' health care services to support:
•continuity of care, which means receiving high quality care from diagnosis to recovery
•ease of movement across the health care system when more specialized services are needed from specialists or in hospitals
Aug 4, 2022 · Part 1 of this series documented Canada’s health-care spending compared to 28 other universal health-care countries and found that Canada ranked second-highest in terms of health care spending as a share of the economy (after adjusting for age).
Nov 30, 2023 · CIHI provides timely and comparable data and information to guide decisions about improving both access to care and wait times for receiving a health service. For some services, this information includes the proportion of patients treated within benchmark time frames.
Dec 10, 2020 · The shortest specialist-to-treatment waits are found in Ontario (8.7 weeks), while the longest are in Nova Scotia (30.1 weeks). It is estimated that, across the 10 provinces, the total number of procedures for which people are waiting in 2020 is 1,224,198.
Canada has a decentralized, universal, publicly funded health system called Canadian Medicare. Health care is funded and administered primarily by the country’s 13 provinces and territories: each has its own insurance plan, and each receives cash assistance from the federal government on a per-capita basis.
People also ask
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In regard to health-care outcome metrics, defined in the report as those outcomes that can be improved by the delivery of health-care services, Canada ranked 10th after taking into account...
