The Health-Care System

Health spending, system capacity, and access

What Canada spends on health care, and what the system has to deliver it: spending as a share of GDP and per person, the physical capacity behind care (hospital beds, doctors, nurses, and imaging), long-term-care beds, access to a regular provider, and wait times. Most measures are shown for Canada and 16 OECD peers. A few access measures are Canada-only.

For how long Canadians live and the conditions that shape it, see Health of Canadians.

Health spending

Current expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP, covering both public and private spending. It measures the share of the economy devoted to health care.

Latest health spending: ranked

Health spending per person

The same spending expressed per person, in US dollars adjusted for purchasing power (PPP) so amounts are comparable across countries. This is often more tangible than the share of GDP. It is roughly what the system spends, on average, for each resident in a year.

Latest health spending per person: ranked

Pharmaceutical spending per person

Spending on retail pharmaceuticals and other medical non-durables, in US dollars at purchasing-power parity per person. Canada is among the highest spenders in the peer group, though well behind the United States, the clear outlier. Definitions differ slightly across countries (indeed, Canada’s figure is flagged by the OECD as differing in definition), so read small gaps as being imprecise.

Universal health coverage

The WHO’s universal health coverage index (0–100) measures how fully a population receives the essential health services it needs. Canada scores around 92. This is among the highest in the peer group and reflects broad access, notwithstanding the wait-time pressures shown below.

Out-of-pocket costs

The share of total health spending that households pay directly, out of their own pockets. This is a common gauge of financial protection, where lower means more care is covered by public or pooled funding. At roughly 15%, Canada sits mid-pack: lower than Switzerland or South Korea, higher than France or the Netherlands.

Health-system capacity

Spending and outcomes describe the system’s size and results; capacity describes what it physically has to work with, such as beds, doctors, and diagnostic equipment. These inputs directly impact access and wait times.

Hospital beds

Total hospital beds per 1,000 population (all care functions).

Latest hospital beds: ranked

Practising physicians

Practising physicians per 1,000 population.

Latest practising physicians: ranked

Practising nurses

Practising nurses per 1,000 population. Nurses are the largest part of the health workforce, so this is a central measure of system capacity alongside physicians and beds.

Latest practising nurses: ranked

MRI units

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units per million population, a measure of key diagnostic imaging capacity.

Latest MRI units: ranked

Long-term care beds

Beds in long-term care facilities and the long-term-care wards of hospitals, per 1,000 people aged 65 and over. This is the institutional capacity supporting aging-population pressures (see the age structure of the population). Countries organize elder care very differently. Some emphasize home care over institutions, so this measures capacity in one model of care, not the quality of elder care overall.

A regular health-care provider

The share of Canadians aged 12 and over who report having a regular health-care provider (typically a family doctor). In 2022 it was 86%, which still leaves roughly one in seven without one.

This is a Canada-only series (Canadian Community Health Survey, annual estimates to 2022). The survey was redesigned after releasing this data, so later years will appear when it is published on a comparable basis.

Wait times for priority procedures

The share of patients treated within the agreed pan-Canadian benchmark time, for five priority procedures (Canada-wide). Higher scores mean more patients are treated on time. The pandemic sharply cut access to scheduled surgeries (hip, knee, cataract) in 2020, and most have only partly recovered since. Emergency hip-fracture repair and radiation therapy held up. This is a Canada-only series. We did not find a comparable peer data source. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) publishes this Canadian dataset annually each spring, so it is refreshed once a year.

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