6th Annual Ipsos-Reid / Aventis Healthcare Survey
The Aventis Healthcare Survey polled adult Canadians who are members of employee health benefit plans about their opinions and attitudes toward both the public healthcare system and their employer-sponsored plans, as well as about public and privately-funded services.
In probing benefit plan members' views on home care issues, The Aventis Healthcare Survey found that eight in 10 respondents believe that nursing care in the home for the elderly (80%), and for people who are dying (80%), should be provided by government health plans. Slightly more (86%), felt home care services for the disabled should be covered by public plans, while two-thirds (65%) say people recovering from operations or illness at home should also be cared for at public expense.
Seven in 10 (68%) think home visits by physicians should be covered by the public system.
Only when it came to meal delivery services is there a split in opinion: 42% say those costs should be paid for by the individual users, with 40% saying government should pay. Only 14% believe they should be covered by employee health benefits.
Providing care at home to elderly family members is becoming a very real fact of life for Canadians. The 2002 Aventis Healthcare Survey found that about one-third (32%) of respondents said that they are personally responsible for taking care of elderly members of their family - everything from driving them to doctors' appointments, making arrangements for medical or other services, and doing things for them that they are no longer able to do themselves.
With respect to overall expectations for the future of the public healthcare system, this year's survey found a rise in optimism over last year's results, with one in four (24%) saying they expect healthcare in their province to get better in the years to come - up eight percentage points from 16% in 2002.
However, almost half (44%) of those polled say they expect the healthcare system in their province to get worse over the next few years (down 11 percentage points from last year's survey), while 30% think it will stay the same.
These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted on behalf of Aventis Pharma Inc. between February 6th and February 16th, 2003. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1,500 adult Canadians who are members of employer-sponsored health benefits plans. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.
To view the factum and tables, please open the attached PDF files.
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For more information on this news release, please contact:
Tricia Benn
Vice-President
Ipsos Public Affairs
(202)463-7300
For direct access to the Aventis Pharma website.
