The Aging Population
How Canada’s aging population will present new challenges to our healthcare system
The Canadian healthcare system is facing many struggles stemming from medical education, to patient-physician encounters, supply and inventory, and many others. However, one main problem that will soon be at the forefront is that many doctor’s offices and hospital ER rooms will be filled with elderly patients seeking medical assistance. Canada’s elderly population is rising; the proportion of seniors in the Canadian population is expected to continue rising more than 4% over the next 10 years.
Worldwide, people are now living a lot longer and have much higher life expectancies compared to several decades ago, and although this is a positive thing, this increases the burden on healthcare systems as many more people will be requiring medical assistance. Not only will there be an increasing demand of physical space in terms of hospital rooms and beds, there will be increases in medical supplies, and demands of physicians, nurses, and the entire medical team in itself.
In Canada, there will be a burden, specifically, in meeting the costs for the medical care required to support all the people seeking support; meeting the needs of the aging population will cause a drastic increase in costs of the publicly funded healthcare system that Canada’s healthcare system is built on. It is projected that the cost of healthcare will increase $2,700 per person per year. Unfortunately, federal health transfers to Canadian provinces and territories do not account for these expected changes and could therefore result in federal funding falling below 20% in 3–4 years.
Although I mentioned some of the reasons why the demand for medical care will sky rocket with an increase in the aging population, I would like to share some common medical conditions and issues that will most likely be where the increasing medical demand will stem from. Older age is often characterized by an emergence of several health states referred to as geriatric syndromes. Some of the symptoms that come with aging include frailty, urinary incontinence, spontaneous falls, delirium, pressure ulcers, and others.
Some of the more specific, and unfortunately more severe, conditions that result from aging and which are some of the main reasons why the elderly are very frequently making visits to the doctors office include some of the following: hearing loss, cataract and refractive errors, back and neck pain, arthritis, osteoporosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, depression, and dementia. Some of these conditions are premeditated meaning that they typically emerge earlier in a person’s life and then worsen with age.
Now, some questions may be raised as to why people tend to develop these medical conditions, or just in general, geriatric syndrome, as we age. Of course, the root of many people’s medical conditions come from their genetics and the fact that their bodies are simply not made to support hundreds of years of life; however, there are some other manageable factors that influence the rate of onset of such symptoms.
Some variations in older people’s health are due to people’s physical and social environments including the neighbourhood they live in, the type of house they live in and their access to resources, the communities they belong to, as well as people’s personal characteristics including sex, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, etc.
Although this may be a rather unfortunate piece given the topic of discussion, I hope that this blog is inspiring to make you want to advocate for current health issues and all of the elderly people who will be seeking assistance in the next few years. Although you may not feel as if you are in a position to make a difference, I promise you that you are! Raising awareness, sharing information to the elderly people in your life about precautionary steps that can be taken like frequent doctor’s appointments, is one step closer to making doctor’s prepared for what patients may present with, as well as patients themselves in that they will be prepared and know what steps to take and when immediate action is necessary.
About the Writer
Wynter Sutchy is a third-year undergraduate student at McMaster University studying Biology (Physiology) and is from King City, ON. She is very passionate about the healthcare field and enjoys sharing her volunteering experiences through writing. She plans to pursue a career in medicine in the future and plans to explore the field of healthcare through research and volunteering throughout her undergraduate career. In her free time, you can expect her to be watching her favourite show, Greys Anatomy, teaching children how to swim, or baking some delicious desserts!
