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C O M M E N T
Health care
in Canada: No promises on wait times
Canada’s
Health Minister Tony Clement can not ensure that the government will
deliver a national patient wait-time guarantee before the next election and yet
he claims "leadership, progress and momentum" based on federal pilot
projects that have upset the provinces.
Clement declared
that the federal government will not only press on with four pilot wait-times
projects -- in diabetes and pre-natal care in selected First Nations communities
and child surgery across the country and claimed other groups in the
medical community have expressed interest in the model that blindsided the
provinces. He would not specify any groups.
The provinces
say they were not consulted about the pilot projects, although it is in their
jurisdiction to deliver health care and put promised guarantees into effect.
And. Clement says, the provinces object to the federal government dipping into
the $5.5 billion that was committed to wait-times reduction in the 10-year
health accord signed by the previous Liberal government’ minister Ujjal
Dosanjh and maintained by the current minority Conservative government.
"The
provinces see this as additional to the 2004 health accord; we think it's a
logical extension of the 2004 health accord. So there is certainly a difference
of opinion. They are concerned about how recourse would work, how you would
actually affect a guarantee,” Clement declared while being un- phased about
wait-times guarantee and the five priority pledges made by the Conservatives
during the 2006 election campaign remain on paper only.
Before the next
federal election, widely expected within the next year, under the guarantee,
patients would receive treatment in a medically acceptable maximum time for a
publicly insured service. If this is not available in their own area, they must
be given the option of receiving treatment at another hospital or clinic
somewhere else in Canada, or possibly in the United States.
The governments
need to put "a lot of ducks in a row" to establish national wait-time
guarantees: information technology, medical personnel and management systems.
But he expressed impatience about getting some forms of guarantee established,
with or without provincial blessing.
The federal
government does not want to exclude the provinces and the provinces have raised
some issues that he does not discount.
The project that
has irked the provinces the most is a $2.6-million project in which 16 pediatric
hospitals will record how long children are waiting for six types of surgery and
other medical treatment. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says this will ultimately
result in a wait-times guarantee for children.
Len Taylor, the
Saskat-chewan health minister reacted to that recent announcement by issuing a
statement on behalf of the provincial and territorial ministers. He questioned
who would deliver wait-time guarantees, suggesting the federal government was
not respecting provincial jurisdiction, and saying the project "will do
very little for most Canadian children." Ontario Health Minister George
Smitherman said the announcement was little more than a photo opportunity.
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Canada’s
Messy Health Care:
Indo Canadian youth loses finger due to
delay in treatment
Gurpreet Singh
AS
powerful and the rich get due or undue treatment, the poor and the need suffer
in this land of honey and heady wine. Here is the tragic story and not the first
one of a happy youth who lost his fingers for lack of timely treatment.
 24-year-old
Gurpreet Singh Sidhu came to Canada about two years back with a dream to settle
down in a land of opportunities and a country whose universal healthcare system
is unparalleled. Sidhu, a mechanist had has right hand injured at work. He was
taken to the Surrey Memorial Hospital, where he waited in the Emergency Room for
medical attention in pain for at least two hours. After the X-rays, he was told
that there was no operating room available and that he would have to go to a New
Westminster hospital. There too he was given a temporary treatment and was asked
to go to the Vancouver General Hospital for surgery. 22 hours later the doctors
had to amputate his finger.
Sidhu and his
family are now considering taking the matter to the court. ``If we were in
India, the two tier healthcare system would have been a big help. What’s the
point of coming to a developed country like Canada then?’’, said Sidhu.
After having a
nightmarish experience at three hospitals of Greater Vancouver, Sidhu wonders
why the Indian doctors who are driving taxis in Canada can’t be hired if there
is shortage of medical staff here. Ironically, the medical tourism industry is
now picking up in Canada and the rich people are increasingly going to India for
hip and knee surgeries.
The Surrey
Newton MLA Harry Bains raised this matter in the BC legislative assembly. He
belongs to the opposition NDP, which has been pressing upon the government to
allocate funds for the construction of a new hospital in Surrey, whose
population is dependent on just one hospital.
The incident
comes at a time when the BC government has launched public consultation to find
means to fix the public health care system. The majority of the participants at
the first public consultation in Kamloops suggested that instead of allowing a
parallel healthcare system, the present health care system should be fixed.
Is it
appropriate to let hundreds of doctors and heath care workers rot as poor ma
menial workers or taxi drivers and deny the needy timely treatment? The people
want some clear answers to the long waiting time even for small surgeries like
cataract.
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