A colleague of mine was teaching a group of medical students recently and they asked a patient why he was in hospital with an injured leg. He answered, “Because I have no money.”

As a family doctor who works largely with people living on low incomes, poverty is at the root of many of the illnesses I treat. And, a dozen or so years into my career, my workload shows no sign of easing up. A shortsighted perspective would say: “good for me.” The Cost of Poverty in Toronto report released recently turns this thinking on its head. This report calculates that poverty costs Toronto alone five billion dollars a year.  Read the rest of this article at The Huffington Post…