Where lies the fault for the current health care staffing crisis?: Editorials

A pair of recent editorials published in the Calgary Herald debate higher education’s role in the current health care crisis. Orthopedic surgeon Dr Debakant Jena points to the disconnect between Canada’s critical demand for skilled workers at a time when “many competent Canadian graduates and university students are desperately trying to enter these fields.” Jena asserts that the failure lies with the “restrictive and unnecessarily elitist” postsecondary system. University of Calgary Associate Professor Ronald Glasberg responded in a subsequent editorial, in which he argues that the issues Jena identified are not due to higher ed being “unnecessarily elitist,” but rather due to a lack of public funding – and as a result, a lack of instructors and educational resources – due to “competitive capitalism.” Glasberg encourages stakeholders to find a way to break out of this cyclical situation, such as through the creation of a publicly funded think tank.