VANCOUVER — Canada ranks near the bottom among high-income countries with universal health care for the availability of doctors, hospital beds and major medical equipment despite being one of the highest spenders, according to a new Fraser Institute study.
The Vancouver-based public policy think-tank says Canada ranked 30th out of 32 countries for the availability of doctors in 2024, the latest year for which comparable data were available.
Canada ranked 26th out of 31 countries for hospital beds and 28th out of 31 for both MRI machines and CT scanners.
At the same time, the study found Canada was the second-highest spender on health care as a share of its economy among the 32 countries, after adjusting for differences in population age.
“There’s a clear imbalance between the high cost of Canada’s health-care system and the actual care Canadians receive,” said Nadeem Esmail, the institute’s director of health policy studies and a co-author of the report.
Esmail said governments should examine how other countries provide universal health care while spending less and offering greater access to services.
The study, Comparing Performance of Universal Health-Care Countries, 2026, compares Canada with other high-income members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that provide universal health care.
Those countries include the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, France, South Korea, Japan, Germany and New Zealand.
“To improve health care for Canadians, our policymakers should learn from other countries around the world that also provide universal health care, often at lower costs to taxpayers and with significantly better access and shorter wait times,” Esmail said.
The Fraser Institute describes itself as an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
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