Scantlebury Wealth Management

The Government of Ontario recently announced that they are making significant changes to the  availability of high-cost cancer medications.  Under its “Funding Accelerated for Specific  Treatments” (FAST) program, selected cancer drugs will get more public funding a year faster than is  already the case. A three-year pilot initiative, the FAST program aims to fast-track seven to ten high-priority cancer treatments each year. Currently, the following drugs are being funded through this program: Tagrisso ([osimertinib] for lung cancer), Scemblix (for a leukemia variant), Nubeqa (for prostate cancer), Calquence ([acalabrutinib tablets] for lymphoma), Opdivo with Yervoy (for colorectal cancer and for liver cancer).  To this we say, hurray.  However, in our view, this change highlights a few of the problems that cancer patients have to overcome when they receive a cancer diagnosis in Canada. The first problem is access. In Canada, provinces have a hard task: bri...

  In a sobering convergence of health and economics, new research is presenting Canadians with a problematic paradox: while the Canadian health system is getting better at treating cancer,  the sheer volume of cases and the skyrocketing cost of treatment are threatening to overwhelm that very same system. Reports from The Lancet and recent provincial data indicate that we are getting better at caring for cancer patients; because, when the data is standardized for age, cancer death rates in Canada actually declined by 29% between 1990 and 2023. However, while the Canadian Healthcare system has improved the life expectancy for cancer patients, Canada is seeing a trend of more cancer diagnosis due to the success of our early detection regime and our aging population. Consequently, Canada is expected to follow trends found globally and we are expecting to see more cases.  Worldwide, by 2050, with 2023 as a baseline, there is an expectation of a 65% increase in the rate of dia...

In Canada, it is often assumed that healthcare coverage extends uniformly across our 10 provinces and three territories. However, a recent incident underscores the crucial need for travel medical insurance even when traveling within the country's borders. As reported by Pat Foran of CTV News, Doug McGinley experienced an alarming situation during a cross country trip this year. Despite typically purchasing travel medical insurance for international trips, Doug - a resident of Oakville, Ontario - didn’t acquire coverage for this trip. After all, he was just travelling within Canada. What could go wrong? However, while driving through Saskatchewan, his journey took an unexpected turn: he began experiencing chest pains. After crossing into Alberta, he was admitted to a hospital in Medicine Hat, where medical professionals determined that he had suffered a mild heart attack. The situation escalated, requiring air ambulance transport to Calgary for emergency treatment. During this harro...

We have been told for over a decade that we will have to deal with a spike in the number of people over the age 65. Since the early 1990s, the Government of Canada has been making small changes in order to deal with that demographic reality. As a Financial Professional, though, it is just as important to look for other examples of what effect this will have on my clients. Consequently, I have been very interested in the dispute between New Brunswick Nursing Homes and their staff. For some context, New Brunswick has one of the oldest populations in the country. Approximately 16 per cent of them are over the age of 65. Or put differently, given that there are 755,000 New Brunswickers, about 122,000 of them are of the age that Long Term Care matters. To put this into context the national average is 14%. As a Financial Professional working in a province with a younger average age, this dispute shows me what might happen a decade or two from now and what I should recommend to my clients. Th...