Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
Renamed Bill 41, the Patients First Act was reintroduced at Queen’s Park on Thursday. The Ontario Medical Association was conspicuously absent from listed supporters. That may be because front-line doctors call Bill 41 the “Bureaucracy First and Patients Last Act
Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2016/10/07/bill-41-would-flood-your-health-care-with-bureaucracy
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Donald Trump brought up Canadian health care as an example of a “flawed” public system during the second U.S. presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/10/09/donald-trump-canada_n_12423178.html
Several weeks ago I had coffee with a board member of one of British Columbia’s regional health authorities. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned the ongoing constitutional challenge to B.C.’s restrictions on patient access to private health care.
The nub of the plaintiffs’ case is that, if the government is not able to provide timely medical treatment to persons suffering on long waiting lists, it cannot at the same time legally prohibit these patients from taking control of the their own health and arranging for private treatment within the province.
It’s a straightforward question rooted in the Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person: what right does the state have to control the choices we make about our bodies, particularly when we are suffering acute physical pain, mental distress, and financial hardship as a result of injuries or illnesses?
My coffee companion said the case reminded him of a recent visit he’d had from a delegation of Chinese government officials interested in learning about Canada’s health care system.
On Sept. 14, Quebec Minister of Health Dr. Gaetan Barrette announced that as of January 2017, Quebec doctors will no longer be allowed to charge accessory fees—additional fees on services already provided by the Quebec health insurance.Accessory fees have generally been charged for services such as eye drops, injections, and stitches. According to Barrette, these fees sum up to approximately $83 million dollars in charges per year, guaranteeing a large profit margin for physicians who pay less than one-seventh of that cost to provide these services.
Source: Quebec promises to abolish health care accessory fees by early 2017 | The McGill Tribune
Canada’s mayors, at a housing conference in Toronto have put the challenge to the Trudeau government to invest $12.6 billion, of an available $20 billion towards affordable housing. Mayor Don Iveson told the audience the same message he’s given in Edmonton annually when city council sets the budget. That money spent on supportive housing will save even more money for the province in other services.
He gave as an example, the story of a residential school survivor, who has mental health and addictions problems, who spent more than 400 days in an acute care bed at the Royal Alex Hospital.
“One of the nurses who runs that ward said ‘we could have put this gentleman up at the Fairmont for less money with 24 hour supervision than it costs to keep him at the hospital for 400 days.’ Now that’s an extreme case but there are hundreds of people in our city in that hospital who spend weeks or months and occasionally years for permanent supportive housing.”
Source: Canada’s mayors want $12.6 billion for supportive and social housing 630 CHED
The personal health information of hundreds of patients is breached every year, but most Canadians live in provinces where health-care providers don’t have to tell victims.A CBC News investigation found six provinces, which have a combined population of about 20 million, have no legislation in place requiring hospitals, doctors and other health-care providers notify patients of a breach of their medical files.
Source: Millions of Canadians don’t have to be told if health information breached – Health – CBC News
Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has served notice that she will enforce the Canada Health Act in Quebec. Good for her. It’s about time. The Canada Health Act is the federal statute governing medicare. It lists the standards provinces must meet if they are to receive money from Ottawa for health care. And it gives the federal government the right to cut transfers to any province that doesn’t meet these standards.
Source: Crackdown on extra-billing is long overdue: Walkom | Toronto Star
Valentine Sicotte requested an appointment with a specialist at Saint-Eustache Hospital back in 2007.
Last week, nine years later, she finally got a call back.
“I tried not to laugh on the phone,” she said.
“I couldn’t remember even having requested the appointment. I told them to give my place to someone who needed it more.”
Sicotte was 19 when she requested the appointment with a gastroenterologist.
Source: ‘I tried not to laugh’: Quebec woman gets call back from specialist after 9-year wait CBC
From her apartment in Ontario, a 24-year old woman waits on the outcome of a Charter challenge in her home province of British Columbia, a place where she claims she was involuntarily held for psychiatric care.Experts say the province is an outlier when it comes to patient consent rights and deemed consent is causing an outflow of so-called psychiatric refugees — people who flee the province to avoid its mental health laws. “I wanted to get well. I wanted to go in and sit down with a doctor,” she says.
“Access to a waiting list is not the same as access to health care.” This observation from the 2005 Supreme Court case of Chaoulli v.
Quebecis probably the most famous judicial statement about Canadian health care. And rightly so. On the surface it is simple logic,
but its depths embrace the frustration of tens of thousands of Canadians who are forced to suffer unnecessarily on provincial health
care waiting lists each year. For them, this dry, ineluctable proposition is a rallying cry.
Last week, four patient plaintiffs and the Cambie Surgery Centre, a private clinic, finally got the chance to put that logic to the test in
the B.C. Supreme Court. Their case is simple: If a province does not provide timely medical treatment through its public health care
system, it cannot legally prevent patients suffering on waiting lists from taking control of their own health and arranging for
treatment privately. The trial is scheduled for 24 weeks of court time over the next eight months, reflecting the scope and import of
this constitutional challenge.