Abstract

Over the past few years each of Canada's provincial governments has introduced changes to their policies regulating the governance and operation of rural healthcare systems; in particular, changing the mandates of rural hospitals. Each province tends to have its own way of dealing with the ongoing balancing act between cost, quality and access. To this end, a variety of governmental strategies have been proposed that recommend everything from complete overhauls of entire provincial systems to mere tweaks and readjustments to the status quo.