The study highlights how Switzerland’s universal health-care system consistently outperforms Canada on most metrics tracked by the OECD.
In 2022, the latest year of available data, despite Canada (11.5 per cent of GDP) and Switzerland (11.9 per cent) spending close to the same amount on health care, Switzerland had 4.6 doctors per thousand people compared to 2.8 in Canada. In other words, Switzerland had 64.3 per cent more doctors than Canada (on a per-thousand people basis).
Switzerland also had 4.4 hospital beds per thousand people compared to 2.5 for Canada—Switzerland (8th) outranked Canada (36th) on this metric out of 38 OECD countries with universal health care.
Likewise, 85.3 per cent of Swiss people surveyed by the CWF (Commonwealth Fund) reported being able to obtain a consultation with a specialist within 2 months. By comparison, only 48.3 per cent of Canadians experienced a similar wait time.
Beyond medical resources and workforce, patient satisfaction diverges sharpy between the two countries, as 94 per cent of Swiss patients report being satisfied with their health-care system compared to just 56 per cent in Canada.
“Switzerland shows that a universal health care system can reconcile efficiency and equity – all while being more accessible and responsive to patients’ needs and preferences,” Labrie said.
“Policymakers in Canada who hope to improve Canada’s broken health-care system should look to more successful universal health-care countries like Switzerland.”
Media Contact:
Yanick Labrie, Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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Emily Rigden, Fraser Institute
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