Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by philistine 1358 days ago
Yeas, exactly. Otherwise this shows the real problem with the health sector; it is undervalued, underpaid and thus requires cheap labor with less accrued wealth to maintain its labour force.
1 comments

Canadian doctors and nurses do fine financially, but there aren't enough of them because Canadian healthcare is a command economy. The government sets a total cost it is willing to pay for healthcare and then sets the number of positions for doctors and nurses based on that budget, not market demand. That's how Canada is in the insane position of being a first world country where 15% of the population doesn't have a family doctor.

Retirement or nursing homes are a different story, and aren't particularly flattering for GP's point. Those do heavily rely on temporary foreign workers (TFWs) or recent immigrants paid around minimum wage, and the quality of care reflects that. There have been numerous scandals in the last couple years during COVID regarding substandard care, with seniors not receiving food/water or being left in their own feces for days. It shouldn't be surprising when bare minimum pay results in substandard outcomes, and the ability of employers to bring in TFWs prevents wages from rising according to market forces.