Canada and the Health Care fiasco

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU. CHISU, CD, PMSC, FEC, CET, P. Eng. Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East This is a subject I have touched on in the past, but it has become such a major issue in the lives of Canadians that the time has come to take a serious look at it. It is time to fix the system, but the issues are complicated and I doubt that the ruling political class is able to do anything more than patch it up; apply a temporary fix which will not resolve the problem. Let us see what will emerge from the Canadian Premiers' meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau, regarding this issue. In truth, we probably should not expect it to be much. The traditional microphone-hogging parade of Premiers whining on national television about having the constitutional responsibility of delivering health care without a fully paid-up federal partner will continue. It is an old battered song being replayed like a broken record. That charade will be followed by the Prime Minister declaring his version of a funding fix for a generation, which will probably only buy a few years of quiet time before the bellyaching ramps up and the next health-care crisis begins. So what is the Prime Minister proposing to do with your hard-earned taxpayer's money? In a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems, the federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, with $46.2 billion in new funding. This new cross-Canada offer includes both increases to the amount budgeted to flow through Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and federal plans to sign a bilateral deal with each province and territory that will be mindful of each system's unique circumstances. This funding influx is coming with an expectation that in order to access new federal dollars, provincial and territorial governments will maintain their current levels of health care spending and commit to new transparency and accountability requirements around how health information is collected, shared, used, and reported to Canadians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented a proposal this week to his provincial and territorial counterparts at the first in-person meeting of all First Ministers since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, indications are that the offer has not satisfied provinces' demands. This seems to be the usual scenario, often seen before. If we look at the current situation of our Health Care system, we perceive a huge crisis in the making. Without improved home care, you cannot ease pressure on long-term care. If you cannot expand decent long-term care, you just fill up hospitals with people who should not be there. When regular hospital beds are full, patients overflow the emergency wards. That leaves paramedics stuck with patients, some with minor ailments, until an overworked physician finds a corridor bed so the paramedic can return to urgently required ambulances. So the story goes on, a vicious cycle with sick Canadians dying in queue, waiting for better care. Even when staffing resources would be adequate, they are royally wasted. Millions of Canadians are scrambling to find family doctors, for example, but those doctors are forced to spend far too much time on paperwork instead of patients. They work under a compensation schedule, which rewards bringing patients into their office for a paid appointment even when an unpaid text message or email response would suffice. Meanwhile, doctor specialization, which is getting more and more scarce, is rewarded handsomely while family practice and psychiatry are not, despite similar training. A future as a general practitioner in rural Canada, where hours would be long and vacations short, is a hard sell in medical school. Yet the Medical Association turns a deaf ear to the systemic needs and shortages, doing nothing to alleviate the problems. In particular, they ignore or sideline foreign-trained doctors, and limit the number of physicians graduating from Canadian medical schools. So, what have desperate Canadians resorted to doing lately? Those who cannot access an emergency ward and do not have a doctor, must head to a walk-in clinic which is, like most doctors in this country, a private enterprise. If you need a hernia fixed in Ontario, chances are you will join the 7,000 others who go to the privately run Shouldice Hospital every year. In view of these now routine Canadian experiences resorting to privately offered medical care, talking about a certain kind of privatization of medical services should not be treated as a bogeyman. Not only does a government-covered procedure in a private clinic not violate the Canada Health Act, but recent polling shows that the public no longer sees the use of a for-profit provider as the axe coming down on the sacred medicare cow. Therefore, let us hope that the widely touted meeting this week between the Prime Minister and the Premiers of Canada will have some positive outcomes for the future of Health Care in Canada, so it can serve Canadians more efficiently and more effectively. However, it seems that proposed changes intended to radically improve our Health Care system are looking only marginally better than believing in the recent episode of China's balloon thaIt is clearly time for the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birth- right to be reformed in order to serve Canadians better. We need to move forward towards new horizons. What do you think?