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Unmet health care needs, 2014 Health Fact Sheets
Unmet health care needs, 2014

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In 2014, roughly 3.4 million Canadians aged 12 and older (11.2%) reported that they did not receive health care when they felt they needed it. Overall, females (12.4%) were more likely than males (10.0%) to have reported an unmet health care need. Among age groups, unmet health care needs were lowest for those aged 12 to 19 and those aged 65 or older, and were highest for those aged 20 to 54. (Chart 1).

The three most reported reasons^{Note 1} for respondents not having had their most recent health care need met were that wait times were too long (33.4%), health care services were unavailable at the time required (13.7%) and the cost (11.4%).

In 2014, Canadians who felt they needed health care but didn’t receive it attempted to get health care services from a number of places^{Note 2}. For those Canadians, 40.8% were unable to get service at a doctor’s office. Other commonly reported places where Canadians could not get the health care they felt they needed included walk-in clinics (15.2%) and hospital emergency rooms (12.4%) (Chart 2).

The largest proportion of reported unmet needs^{Note 3} was for the treatment of physical health problems (65.1%). Other types of unmet needs included treatment for emotional or mental health problems (11.4%), regular checkups (9.4%) and treatments for injuries (8.8%).

Unmet health care needs by province and territory

Compared to the national average (11.2%), the following provinces had lower reported rates of unmet health care needs:

• Newfoundland (7.9%)
• New Brunswick (8.9%)
• Ontario (10.3%)
• Saskatchewan (7.4%)
• Alberta (9.9%)

The following province and territory had higher rates than the national average:

• Quebec (14.1%)
• Yukon (16.9%)

Other provinces and territories^{Note 4} reported rates that were about the same as the national average.

Income and unmet health care needs

Across the ten provinces, Canadians with lower incomes were more likely to have reported an unmet health care need (12.8%) than those with middle or higher incomes (10.2%).

However, in 2014 these differences were not significant in every province. Those with lower incomes were more likely to have reported an unmet health care need in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and western Canada, there was no significant difference between the income groups (Chart 3).

Who is more likely to have an unmet health care need?

Other characteristics were also associated with higher rates of unmet healthcare needs in 2014. For example, not having a regular medical doctor, being an Aboriginal person,^{Note 5} being an overnight patient at a healthcare facility^{Note 6} or having at least one chronic condition^{Note 7} resulted in higher rates of reported unmet health care needs. There was no statistically significant difference in the proportion of Canadians reporting unmet healthcare needs between immigrant populations and non-immigrant populations or between those that lived in population centres and rural areas (Table 1).