Alberta is expected to spend about $41.9 billion on health care this year, according to newly released data.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has published its Report on the development of national health expenditure on Thursday, highlighting national and provincial spending forecasts.
Alberta’s forecast for spending rose 4.6 per cent, from just over $40 billion in 2022. The 2023 numbers equate to about $9,000 per person in the province.
This total includes expenditures of approximately $10.6 billion for hospitals, $4.7 billion for other institutions, $6.4 billion for physicians, $5.2 billion for other professionals, 5, $3 billion for medicines, $3.2 billion for public health and $1.4 billion for administration.
In projected spending for 2023, Alberta trails only Ontario ($126 billion), Quebec ($76.8 billion) and British Columbia ($49.3 billion).
Nationally, Canada is on track to spend $344 billion on health care this year, about $8,740 per Canadian, an increase of $9 billion (2.8 percent) from last year.
The provinces account for about $225 billion of that.
Hospitals, doctors and medicines will account for more than 50 per cent of total healthcare spending in Canada in 2024.
CIHI attributes the growth in the hospital and physician categories to efforts to reduce surgical backlogs and wait times.
“Since the peak of the pandemic, health spending growth has slowed,” said Ann Chapman, director of spending and primary care at CIHI.
“Staff shortages in hospitals, increased demand for hospital and physician services, contract renewals in an environment of persistently high inflation and population aging could be the key drivers of healthcare spending in the coming years.”
CIHI works with federal, provincial and territorial partners and stakeholders across Canada to gather information. The non-profit organization uses the National Health Expenditure Database to provide details on health spending in Canada.
These estimates are preliminary and may be revised as more data becomes available.
“Travel aficionado. Twitter scholar. Writer. Extreme coffee guru. Evil pop culture fanatic.”