The NHS - as viewed from Canada
The Conference Board of Canada, a research organisation based guess where, has just graded Canada's health performance as a 'B'. It is very keen on benchmarking, and we get a look in too. We get a D.
And where do we go wrong?:
Life expectancy (although God knows the weather, some of the people, the lying knaves who run this place etc etc are enough to rob even the strong of the will to live), cancer, circulatory and respiratory diseases, musculo-skeletal system diseases, mental disorders and infant mortality all see us score C or lower. Note, however, that we have the best performance for diabetes.
(1) Reference to an old, old joke which I can't be bothered to explain
Lest the friendly giant to the west (1) be accused of skewing things to make itself look good, here is how the score was arrived at:
"To measure health performance, we evaluate Canada and 16 peer countries on the following 11 report card indicators: life expectancy; self-reported health status; premature mortality; mortality due to cancer; mortality due to circulatory disease; mortality due to respiratory disease; mortality due to diabetes; mortality due to diseases of the musculoskeletal system; mortality due to mental disorders; infant mortality; and mortality due to medical misadventures."
Sounds a reasonable measure, doesn't it?
Where things get really interesting is when scores over time are examined, and we have sunk from C to D, and from somewhere between 6th and 12th to 14th. During that time, nine countries have improved, and five have weakened.
And where do we go wrong?:
Life expectancy (although God knows the weather, some of the people, the lying knaves who run this place etc etc are enough to rob even the strong of the will to live), cancer, circulatory and respiratory diseases, musculo-skeletal system diseases, mental disorders and infant mortality all see us score C or lower. Note, however, that we have the best performance for diabetes.
(1) Reference to an old, old joke which I can't be bothered to explain
Labels: Canada, Health and inefficiency
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 8:41 am.
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Yeah, the list seems to be based on reasonable measures. Kinda weird Canada is the only country with the same grade over the years, though. Oh, and I'm curious to see how the US will do after the healthcare reform. Their D is not a good grade.
Elli
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