Liberals inching toward more private health care
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Updated: July 20, 2009 1:49 PM
Editor:
Recent comments in the media by Health Minister Kevin Falcon and Interior Health Authority board chairman Norm Embree indicate government is going to privatize more health-care services and seniors’ services. Both claim these are just philosophical statements, but they are preparing us to accept more privatized care and less public care. Sounds good for the folks who are wealthy, but it will occur at the expense of the rest of us.
Private clinics will steal more resources, specifically doctors and nurses from the public system.
Doctors and nurses are in short supply and, as more of them approach retirement, the shortage will become more acute.
Waiting times will get longer. Falcon and Embree will tell you private services will reduce waiting lists but, with more doctors and nurses being lured to the private system and fewer available in the public system, we will have to wait longer than we do now in the public system.
The recession won’t last forever. Changes to the system, however, will be very difficult to undo.
Many of us will have to declare bankruptcy or accept poverty as we mortgage our homes to pay for the health care we need.
We shouldn’t have to.
Over the years, most of us have seen many of our tax dollars and health-care premiums go to a public health-care system. The promise has always been that, in return, we would receive the health care we need when we need it. We are not prepared, nor should we have been prepared, to depend on a private system for our health care.
To see government continue to privatize more and more of it is to continue to see governments continue to renege on their promises and their responsibilities.
Efficiencies are available to reduce health care costs.
The Richmond hip and knee reconstruction project and the Algoma breast health program are but two examples of public innovations that can reduce costs and shorten waiting times.
Government, however, seems unwilling to implement more public innovations and is more philosophically disposed to privatized health care and less interested in improving public health care.
Witness the recent statements by Falcon and Embree.
Rick Turner
Kamloops Health Coalition co -chairman
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