Newfoundland and Labrador

There is not, and has never been, a single Canadian health system. Newfoundland and Labrador: A Health System Profile provides a detailed and critical analysis of how Canada's single-payer healthcare system has been implemented in the country's youngestprovince. As part of a series on the health systems of Canada's provinces and territories, this book provides historical background on how the health system of Newfoundland and Labrador has developed since the early twentieth century with an emphasis on the period since it became part of the Canadian federation in 1949. Examining the way the province's health services have been, and currently are, organized, funded, and delivered, the authors focus on the challenges involved in providing effective healthcare in a setting characterized by a large, decentralized territory, a small population much of which is widely distributed in a large number of rural communities and small towns, and comparatively limited fiscal capacity and health human resources. Drawing on maps, figures, and data tables, this book documents the hesitant and limited ways in which Newfoundland and Labrador has sought to deal with the challenges and difficulties that the system has experienced in responding to recent changes in demography, economics and medical technology.--