| Home |  |
Search | |
Join Us | |
Contact Us | |
Local Coalitions | |
Volunteer | |
About OHC | |
Links | |
Gallery |
For a hard copy of any report or document please contact the OHC
A reading of the new "Health Accord" reached last week at the First Ministers' meetings leads to more questions than answers. However, some of the agreement is fairly clear. This is a preliminary analysis highlighting some key issues based on the accord and on others' analyses. I will send out more information as it becomes available. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that this accord will not protect the future of Medicare in Canada. It is very weak on accountability, standards and targeting. It does nothing to prevent for-profit corporations from taking over the health system. It does not substantially improve inequities in access except indirectly through some improvements in funding if the funding is used as prescribed. However, there is no enforcement of funding priorities and outcomes.
The Romanow Report on the Future of Health Care concluded that there is a consensus among Canadians that Medicare is a moral enterprise, not a commercial venture. Canadians believe that equal and timely access to medically necessary health services on the basis of need alone is a right of citizenship. The core values which underpin Medicare remain the same - equity, fairness and solidarity. As a result, Canadians reject diluting the principles of Medicare, scrapping national standards, paying privately to get faster care, and treating health care as a business. The Romanow Report rejects a parallel tier of private, for-profit care for the delivery of what he calls direct health care services such as medical, diagnostic and surgical care. This conclusion is to be applauded. It is based on evidence that for-profit care will harm, not improve, Medicare. While the Report has rejected a parallel tier of for-profit care, there does not appear to be a mechanism for ensuring that this does not happen. It does recommend that the Canada Health Act must be clarified to include these services under the Act. The Report needs to be looked at more closely. Overall, the Romanow Report offers some important steps forward to preserving and expanding Medicare for today's and future generations, but it is just a starting point. It has established some fundamental principles which need to be built and expanded upon.
For years, health care advocates and their organizations have pushed for true primary care reform that will deliver to Ontarians more access and better services. However, the provincial government and the Ontario Medical Association are in the process of hijacking this reform and are working to create corporatized, for-profit, HMO-style Primary Care. The piloting of physician controlled primary care groups, combined with the new right to incorporate, will result in a dramatic acceleration of privatization. The danger posed by this to Ontarians cannot be overstated. There is an urgent need to create a public, not-for-profit system of Primary Care in Ontario, but this is not what they have in mind. We are therefore calling on the public and all member organizations to become actively engaged in the struggle for a Primary Care system that meets our needs and reflects our interests. Primary Care, as with all sectors of our health care system, requires adequate funding, resources and staffing and is integral to a public, not-for-profit single-tier health care system.
A study by Allyson M Pollock published in the British Medical Journal examines how the introduction of primary care trusts in the UK could lead to a US style health system.
British Medical Journal article on the privatization of primary care in Britain. Authors: A. Pollock, S. Player and S. Godden
back to top of page
| Earlier Reports & Media Releases | Outside Reports |