Monitor Telegram

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Health care: more isn’t always better

Each year, at least one million unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures are done in Canadian health-care settings. This means hundreds of thousands of Canadians are exposed to potential harm by unnecessary care.

Unnecessary care could be a prescription drug, a diagnostic test or a medical procedure that doesn’t improve a patient’s health outcomes and isn’t backed by the best available evidence. It may also involve risks and harmful side-effects.

In other words, this medical care offers no value to patients and strains resources.

A recent report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, in partnership with Choosing Wisely Canada, demonstrates how pervasive unnecessary care is across the country and highlights several key examples where changes could benefit patients and the health system.

read more at winnipegfreepress.com

Taking a stand for patients rights’ and health-care choice

“The most advanced justice system in the world is a failure if it does not provide accessible justice to the people it is meant to serve.”

That was Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin speaking last year. Now, a landmark Charter health-care case in British Columbia is showing just how empty the promise of access to justice can be if the government is determined to block it.

The plaintiffs’ case is straightforward: if the government fails to provide patients with timely medical treatment, then it cannot stop them from taking control of their own health and arranging for private treatment to alleviate their suffering.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that such restrictions violated the patients’ rights more than a decade ago. Since then, provinces have continued to unconstitutionally restrict patient choice even as the problem of wait lists has worsened.

read more at torontosun.com

Canadian health care struggles to find a cure for hallway medicine

Jack Webb died in a Halifax hospital on Feb. 1, after sitting in a chilly emergency room hallway for six hours and being bumped from a room by another dying patient during his five-day stay.

“I believe Jack was terrified. … He wanted to go home,” his wife, Kim D’Arcy, said.

His story isn’t unique. Over the last few months, there have been a flurry of stories from patients across Canada, complaining that they were kept in hospital hallways because of overcrowding.
A woman from Surrey, B.C. recently spent three days in the hallway, after being admitted for internal bleeding.

“When my doctor came to see me, there were people standing around and he was talking about my private, personal information about the treatment I was about to go through,” the woman, Karen Sidhu, told Global News.

“He couldn’t help it. It was really unacceptable.”

read more at globalnews.ca

The many obstacles to health-care improvements: Opinion

A series of daunting factors have led to the public’s passive acceptance of paying high costs for a narrow range of services of mediocre quality.

The need for change in health care has been obvious for years. Many studies have been conducted and recommendations made on what’s needed to meet optimally the needs of the population in the current and coming decades. But change itself has been very scarce.

One reason is that none of our 14 provincial/territorial/federal health care delivery “systems’ has a single governance; the place where the “buck stops” with respect to what each does and does not accomplish and how well or poorly. It is only by default that Canadians hold their governments accountable for how well their hospitals, physicians, pharmacists, and other providers meet their changing needs for health care services. On the other hand that there are 14 “systems” could be an advantage as it was when Saskatchewan’s pioneering introduction of Medicare was copied by other jurisdictions.

read more at thestar.com

How Much Health Care Is Too Much?

Each year, there are at least one million unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures done in Canadian health care settings. This means that hundreds of thousands of Canadians are exposed to potential harm by unnecessary care.

What constitutes ‘unnecessary care’?

Unnecessary care could be a prescription drug, a diagnostic test or a medical procedure that does not improve a patient’s health outcomes and is not backed by the best available evidence. It may also involve risks and harmful side-effects.

In other words, this is medical care that offers no value to patients and strains health care resources.

read more at huffingtonpost.ca

Outspoken doc not impressed by Health Canada announcement

A general practitioner who works with Indigenous patients is skeptical about a new Health Canada policy that allows travel companions for pregnant Status Indian and Inuit women.

Dr. Mike Kirlew, a Sioux Lookout, Ont. doctor told APTN Investigates he believes the policy is just another band aid on a system that needs major surgery.

He wonders if the policy is something the federal government really feels is innovative.

“Do we honestly think that this would win a health care innovation award,” he said.

APTN Investigates is digging into Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) and First Nations healthcare as part of a report called Surviving Bureaucracy airing Friday April 21.

read more at aptnnews.ca

Is Mental Health spending a sneaky con?

Last month, we covered fraud in the healthcare system. Our next article will be zeroing in on the biggest hankerer for those healthcare funds – Mental Health.

A few years ago, I was walking down Bay Street in December with my wife. It was the Friday evening before Christmas and the street was bustling with shoppers. As we rushed, shopping bags in hand, to get to our last store before closing, a well-dressed man with an accent approached us.

He explained (and I’m keeping this much more concise here) that he and his family had driven from the US through Toronto to make it home to Montreal for Christmas. His car had broken down on the Gardiner and he put them up in a hotel. He found out his car repair would be too much, so he needed $200 to get his family on a bus. After the long-winded story, my wife started speaking with him in French and, being the most warm-hearted person I know, reached into her purse.

I gave her a look to slow her down. Being a frugal skeptic (overall jerk, in her words), I asked a few simple questions. Why did he decide to come via Toronto? Why didn’t he take the 401? Who is the mechanic he brought his car to? Where is his family now?

With a bit of prodding, he scurried away, looking for his next victim. My wife was a bit angry with me for not allowing her to help him and for being so cold with him. We left it at that and didn’t speak of it again.

The following year, we happened to be Christmas shopping downtown again. And who pops out of the crowd speaking to another young couple. My wife forgave me after that.

One thing that I admire in that man was that he had a good story and great delivery. Very convincing. His story was one that makes the heart bleed and the money come forth. Top notch business model. He could’ve been working his hands to the bone for $20 an hour or he could spend his hour with 4 different couples and 2 of them would spring for his $200 story.

What does this have to do with mental health spending you ask? Well, mental health IS an issue (just as would be families stranded on a cold December night). But you and I and every taxpayer are the dupes in this one.

In researching this, I waded through more doublespeak than can even be conceived. I sat down and started making a diagram of the direction of funds in the marketing, lobbying, advertising, advocating, associations, fundraising activities and the like. It is like drawing a rat’s nest to try and track it all. We’re definitely not conspiracy theorists here, but one group stands out as the major promoter and biggest beneficiary of the popularization of Mental Health and Mental Health funding…

Like I admired the con man, I marvel at the business model of the psychopharmaceutical industry. It’s a great return on investment. Being somewhat of a capitalist, I should probably jump in on it and pick up some stock. Alas, my moral fibre would never allow it. Nor would my wife.

 

Trump campaign once again slams Canadian health care

The latest villain of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign: Canada’s health care system.

Trump’s Republican running mate, vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, knocked the Canadian system during an appearance with Trump on Tuesday, following Trump’s inaccurate criticism in a radio interview last week.

Canada’s government insurance program has emerged as a late-campaign foil for the Trump campaign even though he has expressed strong support for it in the past. He has begun targeting Canada’s program as he has tried to turn public attention to problems with Obamacare, a much different program that involves government subsidies for insurance plans purchased from corporations.

Speaking in a hotel ballroom in an important suburb of Philadelphia, Pence, the governor of Indiana, falsely suggested that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is proposing a Canada-style “single-payer” system.

“She actually went to Canada and gave a speech that came out not too long ago,” he said. “She told Canadians and business groups that she wanted to get, and I’m quoting, ‘universal health care coverage like you have here in Canada.’ Well, we don’t want the socialized health care they have in Canada. We want American solutions.”

In that January 2015 speech, at Saskatoon’s Arts and Convention Centre, Clinton did not seem to be suggesting she wanted America to adopt Canada’s system. Rather, while defending Obamacare, she said she wanted all Americans insured.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/11/01/trump-campaign-once-again-slams-canadian-health-care.html

Focus on innovation, not more cash, to improve health care in Canada: doctor

Squabbling by provinces in the run-up to a new health accord points to the need for an agency that would share regional health-care innovations with the rest of the country, says an editorial in Canada’s premier medical journal.

Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, deputy editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), made the case in an editorial published Monday, saying spats over money and self interest could end in failed negotiations with the federal government, which must fund the proposed agency.

“A temporary tinkering with the health system, without a wholesale system change, will not deliver the health-care improvements Canadians need,” he wrote.

Much of the friction at a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial health ministers in Toronto two weeks ago stemmed from the Liberal government’s plan to adopt the former Conservative government’s decision to slash the six per cent funding increase to three per cent in a new health accord starting next April.

Stanbrook said innovation is the key to changing a health-care system that can’t be sustained as costs soar without better outcomes, especially for groups including seniors, indigenous peoples and the mentally ill.

Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/focus-on-innovation-not-more-cash-to-improve-health-care-in-canada-doctor-1.3139392

Canadian health care is even more restrictive than communist China’s

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.

Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2016/10/06/canadian-health-care-is-even-more-restrictive-than-communist-chinas