Health spending growth slows or falls among Western nations

Growth in health spending slowed or fell in real terms in 2010 in almost all the countries of the industrialized West, reversing a long-term trend of rapid increases, according to statistics recently released by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

OECD statistics for the same period also show that Canada enjoys a slight advantage compared to other countries in the number of nurses - which the OECD defines as including Registered Nurses, Registered Psychiatric Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses.

Overall health spending throughout the 34-nation economic group grew by close to 5 per cent in real terms during the period that ran from 2000 to 2009, the OECD said in a statement, but "this was followed by zero growth in 2010."

The OECD statement also said preliminary figures available from a limited number of member countries suggest there will be little or no growth reported for 2011 throughout the market economies of the OECD.

Health spending in Europe was hit hard by the growing economic crisis in the Eurozone, with the impact starting to really show up in 2010. In North America, growth also slowed in 2010, but not as much, with spending increases at around 3 per cent in both Canada and the United States.

Canadian health spending in 2010 as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was at 11.4 per cent, close to 2 per cent higher than the OECD average - but it is important to note that because of the efficiencies of our public health system spending here is much lower than in the heavily privatized United States, which spent 17.6 per cent of GDP on health the same year.

Average health spending per capita by Canada in 2010 was $4,445 US, compared with an average of all OECD countries of $3,268 and an average in the United States of $8,233. This puts in context the calls of privatization advocates in Canada who want to solve Canada's perceived health spending problem by moving toward the even more expensive U.S. model.

Despite the relatively high level of health spending in Canada, the OECD report said, there were fewer physicians per capita than in most other OECD countries - 2.4 physicians per 1,000 population in 2010, compared with an OECD average of three physicians per 1,000.

When it came to regulated nurses, however, the picture was much better, with Canada posting ratios of 9.3 nurses per 1,000 population in 2010, compared with an OECD average of 8.7 per 1,000.

It is interesting to observe the variation across Canada in number of regulated nurses, particularly in number of RNs. The table at the bottom of this story takes the numbers reported in the Canadian Institute for Health Information report per 100,000 population and rounds them up to per 1,000 population as was done by the OECD.

It shows Alberta nurse numbers very close to the Canadian average, with Alberta well ahead of British Columbia and a little ahead of Ontario, but badly lagging the provinces of Atlantic Canada, plus Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec.

Because of provincial and federal policies and priorities, Canada fares very badly in the number of hospital beds available for curative care - 1.7 per 1,000 population in 2009, compared with 3.4 beds per 1,000 people throughout the OECD the same year.

Regulated Nurses per 1,000 people across Canada

Jurisdiction	RN/1,000	LPN/1,000	RPN/1,000	Total/1,000
Canada	6.9	2.3	0.4	9.3
AB	7.0	1.9	0.3	9.2
BC	5.5	1.8	0.4	7.7
SK	8.1	2.6	0.7	11.4
MN	7.8	2.1	0.6	10.1
ON	6.5	2.2	-	8.7
QC	7.2	2.5	-	9.7
NB	7.2	3.5	-	13.1
NS	8.5	3.7	-	12.2
PEI	9.0	4.0	-	13.0
NL & Lab	10.4	4.8	-	15.2

 

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