By Hugh Holland
Getting older isn’t for the faint of heart. About 20 years ago, an older friend told me to do all the things you want to do early in retirement, because later on, it gets harder to do them. That was good advice, and we have tried to follow it. Statistically, a high percentage of your lifetime healthcare spending occurs in the last few years of life.
A new report by the World Economic Forum shows that healthcare spending takes up $9.8 trillion per year, or 10% of the global economy, and that life expectancy has stagnated in the last decade. The Canadian Institute for Health Information says total health spending in Canada was expected to reach $331 billion in 2022, or $8,563 per Canadian. It’s about $15,000 in the USA, where life expectancy is lower, and 640,000 people per year declare bankruptcy for medical expenses.
Supply chains of everything, including healthcare professionals, have been disrupted by demographics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and recent wars. The number of people without a family GP is 10% in the UK, 20% in Canada, and 27% in the US. That can mean longer wait times for non-urgent procedures. Increasing healthcare costs are putting immense strain on households, governments, insurers, and healthcare providers. Droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods resulting from climate change are playing a rising role in the cost of both physical and mental health, especially among young people who are more worried about their long-term future than we were at their age.
It’s a tough nut to crack, but the WEF report offers some suggestions in which tech companies could help to engage consumers in healthy behaviours and partner with providers to help scale up solutions to reduce healthcare costs and produce better health outcomes, with longer more active lives. But, like climate change, we must all contribute what we can to our own healthcare. We can’t leave it all up to doctors and governments.
Lest we dwell too long on the 20% empty part of the healthcare glass, let’s look at the 80% full part. We live in a country with one of the world’s top-rated healthcare systems. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty darn good. I have enjoyed good health, but I just turned 85, and in the last 3 years, my wife and I have both been through major surgeries, with all the attendant high-tech diagnostic procedures. These were all well-managed by our local doctors and carried out by a combination of doctors and hospitals in Huntsville, Bracebridge, Orillia, Barrie, Newmarket, and Toronto. Some procedures were done laparoscopically, which greatly reduces recovery time and hospital costs.
We are grateful to the medical professionals we encountered on these journeys from all over the world: doctors, nurses, medical technologists, and the all-important hospital cleaning and support staff. We can’t thank them all enough. If we had an ounce of prejudice, these experiences have taken it away. It shows that we are all just human beings, but extreme religion and extreme politics can and will divide us— If we let it.
And we must give special thanks to our dedicated and tireless family doctors. Dr. David Mathies has been a rock at MAHC for 40 years. I have been very fortunate to have had him as my doctor for 24 years. And he would not start a well-earned retirement until he found a well-qualified replacement in Dr. Maria Morcos. Dr. Melanie Mar has been my wife’s physician who brought her through a very challenging time of rare surgery performed by Dr. Shiva Jayaraman at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Jayaraman is a professor of surgery at U of T with an additional Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering that enables him to be a pioneer in developing special tools for laparoscopic surgery. And he did a very good job of teaching new Huntsville surgeon Dr. Tony Yang.
Hugh Holland
Hugh Holland is a retired engineering and manufacturing executive now living in Huntsville, Ontario.
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