Dear Editor:
Re: Time to take a hard look at health care, Our view, The Record, March 26.
Your article states "It's time we looked beyond our immediate neighbour and took a serious look at what some of our more distant relatives are apparently doing better (at health care) than we are."
In fact, we don't need to look to other countries for ways to improve wait times and our health-care system. There are many excellent solutions that have been successful right here in Canada, they are just not being widely implemented.
We know there are better ways of managing wait lists to make sure ORs are not sitting idle and to make sure the sickest people get treated first. We could be setting up more "one-stop shopping" public diagnostic and elective surgery clinics to reduce our running around to get different tests and attend different appointments, and to reduce the overhead costs.
There is considerable evidence that a national Pharmacare program would do a lot to make our system more affordable and effective. And we could really make a difference by improving community health services (prevention, primary care, home and community care, rehabilitation, mental health services) to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency room visits, particularly among higher users of health services like the frail elderly and people living with a mental illness. The Wait Time Alliance of Canada 2011 Report identified increasing access to community health services as the most
important intervention needed to reduce wait times in emergency rooms and for elective surgeries.
We also need the federal government to come to its senses and agree to negotiate a new Health Accord with the provinces and territories.
This would provide the provinces with stable health care funding, and could set national standards for the improvements that need to be made for people all across Canada. The current Health Accord expired March 31, on which there was a National Day of Action in 40 communities across Canada.
Our governments could make it a priority to implement the positive public solutions that have already proven successful at reducing wait times. This is how we can make our health-care system, and our health, better.
Rachel Tutte, New Westminster
