I really do agree with that statement. I think there are efforts made to better integrate health care so that we can provide holistic care, whether they are digital strategies, where we can all share electronic medical records, or just how we fund, as you said, better prevention.
I want to just take two seconds to talk about that because it came out of Alberta from Alberta Health Services, namely the impact of chronic loneliness on overall health care costs. Chronic loneliness was shown to be the biggest driver of keeping people in hospital who could have been removed from hospital or ALC—alternate level of care. It also showed that the most likely reason that a senior would end up in hospital is if they were lonely. It is also a driver of chronic illness, and it is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Dealing with chronic loneliness is a huge issue that could, like other things, have transformative cost. It drives anxiety, it drives depression, it drives suicide rates and it drives a whole lot of issues that, if we tackled with early intervention and mental health promotion and belonging, we would have much more health and well-being in society.
Thank you.