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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.

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

Canada Needs to Crack Down on Private Services to Save Public Healthcare

Canadians pride themselves on their publicly funded healthcare system, so it stung when Donald Trump singled us out in a recent presidential debate for traveling south to the US to pay for medical procedures (even if medical tourism is a reality, at least for some people who live here).

Now, the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) is calling on the Minister of Health to give more teeth to the existing law and to “punish violations” by levying fines, in order to stop privatization from sneaking into universal healthcare.

Canada is grappling with the fate of its publicly funded system. In September, orthopedic surgeon and former Canadian Medical Association president Brian Day launched a legal challenge against the B.C. government to lift a ban on private insurance, which he says violates patients’ rights by forcing them to endure long waiting times for medical services.

If Day is successful, the CMAJ warns, it could be the beginning of the end for our cherished single-payer system.

Editors at the CMAJ acknowledge the current system has problems, like its notoriously long wait times—one woman in Quebec waited nine years for a medical appointment. A consequence of this, they say, is the emergence of a two-tiered system that allows well-off people to opt for private treatment abroad, or here in Canada, which has seen private clinics springing up alongside the rise of extra billing for certain procedures.

Source: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/canada-needs-to-crack-down-on-private-services-to-save-public-healthcare