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Will the PM and Premiers fix the health care system?


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Tomorrow the PM and Premiers, after many months of bickering, will finally sit down to try to come to an agreement on federal health care money for the provinces.

But the health care system has been failing Canadians for years and is in dire condition with over a million people on waiting lists, millions without a family doctor, and approximately ten thousand a year dying on the waiting lists.  Is this what it took for these politicians to get together?

I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope for this system or our politicians to rectify the problem.  It is very serious and they do not seem to have the urgency to be able to fix it.  Trudeau said there will be no agreement reached on Feb. 7th, when they meet tomorrow.  What kind of an attitude is that to go into such an important meeting?  No wonder two thirds of Canadians believe the system is broken.  Canadians feel trapped in a broken system with no way to fix it.

"The latest government data indicates that 3.2 million Canadians are waiting for surgery, a diagnostic scan, or specialist treatment, according to think tank SecondStreet.org.

The latest data also suggests that 41,487 patients have died while on a waiting list since 2018–2019."

Over 3.2 Million Canadians on Health-Care Waitlists: Government Data (theepochtimes.com

Adding to the confusion are the NDP's Singh's comments:   

"Shawn Whatley: Jagmeet Singh uses confusion about private care to support the status quo"

Shawn Whatley: Jagmeet Singh uses confusion about private care to support the status quo (msn.com)

Yet he continues to prop up the government helping to keep Canadians in this disastrous situation of a failing health care system.  His solution would seem to be to greatly increase taxes and spend billions more on more nurses and staff in the public system, which may be failing us because of serious flaws.  He believe tax money alone will fix the system.  He offers no solutions to the need for innovation and efficiency in the system.

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21 hours ago, blackbird said:

His solution would seem to be to greatly increase taxes and spend billions more on more nurses and staff in the public system, which may be failing us because of serious flaws.  He believe tax money alone will fix the system.  He offers no solutions to the need for innovation and efficiency in the system.

Tax money alone won't fix the system, but it will go a long way towards improving it. The system needs many more doctors, nurses and support staff and a lot more hospitals, beds and infrastructure. You cannot get those without money. Innovation and efficiency will do a bit but the system is on the verge of doing more with nothing. It will take a decade or more to recover the system. The fault lies with taxpayers who continuously demand more from a government but also demand lower taxes. Premier Moe of Saskatchewan is demanding more money from the feds, but had enough spare change to give every one of us a cheque for $500.

Maybe the federal government should cancel the F-35 and put that money into healthcare. The F-35 will likely never be used, but we need to start fixing healthcare now.

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Not a chance in hell. The Liberals and NDP are too ideologically committed to the current Cuban-style system. And that system only works in an authoritarian dictatorship where the government gets to set all prices. Including the salaries of doctors and nurses. It does not work here. And it can not work here. Not with the way the prices of pharmaceuticals and hospital equipment keeps rising.

Things will have to get worse. And then we'll need a conservative in office willing to bear the wrath of the Left in order to shift us over to a more European-style of healthcare which will be more sustainable. The outrage in the minds of the Left that anyone might make a profit off healthcare will stop the needed changes until that happens.

It is ironic that the Left so admires Nordic countries until you suggest we switch our healthcare system to resemble theirs. Then that admiration turns to fury at such 'far right/alt-right/hateful conservative' views that profit only 'the rich'. 

The Left are literally willing to let people die in large numbers in pursuit of their imagined nirvana where the rich have to wait in long lines the same as the poor. Even though that does not and never will happen.

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2 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Tax money alone won't fix the system, but it will go a long way towards improving it. The system needs many more doctors, nurses and support staff and a lot more hospitals, beds and infrastructure. You cannot get those without money. Innovation and efficiency will do a bit but the system is on the verge of doing more with nothing. It will take a decade or more to recover the system. The fault lies with taxpayers who continuously demand more from a government but also demand lower taxes. Premier Moe of Saskatchewan is demanding more money from the feds, but had enough spare change to give every one of us a cheque for $500.

Maybe the federal government should cancel the F-35 and put that money into healthcare. The F-35 will likely never be used, but we need to start fixing healthcare now.

Let me be clear.  I agree the health care system needs a lot more money.  But that alone will not fix a bad system.  It might improve it marginally, but it needs far more than money.

The attached article explains why doctors are frustrated with all the red tape and extra hoops they must jump through continuously.

Cutting Red Tape Could Let Canadian Doctors Provide 55.6 Million More Patient Visits per Year: Report (theepochtimes.com)

The problem with a public health care system is it is bureaucratic with endless rules, red tape, administration that blocks innovations and unions that block changes and individual initiatives.  Some doctors on the Vancouver Island are frustrated with their island administrator because he or she is causing them problems.  The higher administrator backs that administrator 100% and so the system is paralyzed.  They are not listening to the doctors on the front line.  The system is paralyzed partly because administrators are stubborn, not innovative or inventive, refuse to change or allow any changes or freedom to use personal judgment and initiative.  Being part of a public system, they prefer to hide behind the safety of massive rules, procedures, regulations, and red tape.  Job security, pensions, and avoiding changes that could cause some upheaval, all contribute to the paralysis.

There is no excuse for an emergency department to have only one doctor when people are waiting for six hours to be seen and there are other doctors in the community just working in their offices.  Another example of bureaucratic paralysis.  They kept the temperature turned down in the waiting areas of the ER probably to discourage people from going there and save a few dollars on heating, which by the way, they spend in many other ways.  One doctor to see patients and many nurses running around doesn't sound rational.

Some doctors are overworked and others far fewer patients.  Yet people can't get a family doctor.

The system is really dysfunctional and needs major changes.  Since it is largely a public system run at the top by politicians and bureaucrats, I am doubtful it will be changed much.   

As you said there are many other demands by the population besides health care and politicians do not really give it the priority it requires.  They are doling out money rapidly for all kinds of other things and spending time on many other issues.  That's the trouble with a public system and why Canada ranks far worse than many other countries.  Our political leaders have let the health care system go down to an abysmal state in the last number of years and done next to nothing to stop the disaster.  Why should I believe they are suddenly going to change their attitude?

I don't hold out much hope for the meeting today in Ottawa.  They might throw more federal money at the system, but that won't fix all the problems.  It requires far more than money.  It requires the will of our political leaders, which I don't see.  They are divided as is the population who have been constantly fed with propaganda.  The NDP is more interested in placating the health care unions than fixing the system.

 

Edited by blackbird
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3 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Tax money alone won't fix the system, but it will go a long way towards improving it. The system needs many more doctors, nurses and support staff and a lot more hospitals, beds and infrastructure. You cannot get those without money. Innovation and efficiency will do a bit but the system is on the verge of doing more with nothing. It will take a decade or more to recover the system. The fault lies with taxpayers who continuously demand more from a government but also demand lower taxes. Premier Moe of Saskatchewan is demanding more money from the feds, but had enough spare change to give every one of us a cheque for $500.

Maybe the federal government should cancel the F-35 and put that money into healthcare. The F-35 will likely never be used, but we need to start fixing healthcare now.

Therein lies a part of the problem.

Money is needed for healthcare and it is  there except politicians of all stripes in all Provinces are giving the taxpayers cash back instead of putting it into places where the taxpayers say it is most desperately needed.

One government charges carbon tax and then gives billions back....

Most governments give rebates for one thing or another.

Would the taxpayers be more pissed at losing the rebates or letting health care get worse?

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I went to a walk-in clinic in Winnipeg one day a number of years ago.  I was just visiting relatives in the area and don't live there.  The waiting area was small and crowded.   I believe I went in for a relatively small matter.   What I got in the walk-in clinic was the Norwalk Virus and was sick as a dog that night.  

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On 2/7/2023 at 12:40 PM, Queenmandy85 said:

I thank God every day that I did not become Prime Minister. So should all of you.

Yeah me too I think. LOL

I do not  defend him but, Trudeau has every right to ask for audits of the money he gives for healthcare.

Provinces have a very bad habit of spreading money around even when designated for specific things. They should have to prove the money is being spent for what it was issued.

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On 2/7/2023 at 11:08 AM, blackbird said:

The problem with a public health care system is it is bureaucratic with endless rules, red tape, administration that blocks innovations and unions that block changes and individual initiatives. 

The reason for this is the need to ensure the money is well spent. When, on rare occasions, we find out a doctor has been billing for phantom patients or there is some other form of corruption, the voters raise holy hell. So, institutions require reports to see where the money goes and also to use the statistics to determine where they need to target the resourses. It comes down to Myata's concept of accountability.

As for unions, I would hate to live and work in a place without a strong union. I did not have the skill set required to negotiate my wages and working conditions on my own. I had a union who hired professional negotiators to do that for me. Thanks to my union, I was able to retire with a decent defined benifit pension for life.

Edited by Queenmandy85
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There's a million ways to make things more efficient and technology is #1,

I live where they're still 'faxing' things back and forth, taking days to get results from the hospital lab to the doctor's office 1,000 ft away and no one ever contacts patients back about anything. All results are on YOU to nag and pester and demand services.
A central database that all doctors can access in an instant is needed, office staff should be required to take the results of every visit, enter them immediately with links to scans etc. instead of what I see - sitting with their thumbs up their ass reading the magazine that should be reserved for patients waiting in the lobby, THe database should spout a list to their clinic of who needs prescriptions renewed, has appointments there or is due at the lab and they should make an effort to call them to make things run smoother.

Also, the doctor doesn't need to see you every time to renew an ongoing prescription unless there's new info or something changes. FFS I've been on metformin almost 8 years and they always tell me no appointments available for 6 weeks for a 2 month prescription renewal for something I'm supposed to take every effing day for the rest of my life.
Just send an auto-refilling prescription to the drug store and call me and set up an appt. if a change is needed.

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2 hours ago, herbie said:

There's a million ways to make things more efficient and technology is #1,

I live where they're still 'faxing' things back and forth, taking days to get results from the hospital lab to the doctor's office 1,000 ft away and no one ever contacts patients back about anything. All results are on YOU to nag and pester and demand services.
A central database that all doctors can access in an instant is needed, office staff should be required to take the results of every visit, enter them immediately with links to scans etc. instead of what I see - sitting with their thumbs up their ass reading the magazine that should be reserved for patients waiting in the lobby, THe database should spout a list to their clinic of who needs prescriptions renewed, has appointments there or is due at the lab and they should make an effort to call them to make things run smoother.

Also, the doctor doesn't need to see you every time to renew an ongoing prescription unless there's new info or something changes. FFS I've been on metformin almost 8 years and they always tell me no appointments available for 6 weeks for a 2 month prescription renewal for something I'm supposed to take every effing day for the rest of my life.
Just send an auto-refilling prescription to the drug store and call me and set up an appt. if a change is needed.

We have to keep in mind that these are issues for the Provincial governments to resolve. 

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A world War looms...we are emerging from a "pandemic" that cost us all HUGE...our government has aided in making our energy costs monumental...

And we should spend more money we don't have?

Give nurses full time jobs and adjust the existing Healthcare kitty. Before we spend ourselves into bankruptcy. 

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15 hours ago, Nationalist said:

A world War looms...we are emerging from a "pandemic" that cost us all HUGE...our government has aided in making our energy costs monumental...

And we should spend more money we don't have?

Give nurses full time jobs and adjust the existing Healthcare kitty. Before we spend ourselves into bankruptcy. 

A world war with Russia or China won't cost us very much. The Canadian military is an expensive token with no viability. It has been that way for 70 years. We could divert several billion from the CAF to healthcare and education. We need more people in healthcare and that means vast improvements in education. We have too many people like me with history or english degrees and not enough people with real education in the sciences. It will take decades to replace all the healthcare workers, engineers, and trades people etc., we have lost in the last 10 years.

Edited by Queenmandy85
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55 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

A world war with Russia or China won't cost us very much. The Canadian military is an expensive token with no viability. It has been that way for 70 years. We could divert several billion from the CAF to healthcare and education. We need more people in healthcare and that means vast improvements in education. We have too many people like me with history or english degrees and not enough people with real education in the sciences. It will take decades to replace all the healthcare workers, engineers, and trades people etc., we have lost in the last 10 years.

It would cost plenty in funds and lives.

Canada can't afford to be frivolous right now.

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48 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

It would cost plenty in funds and lives.

Canada can't afford to be frivolous right now.

You are half right. It will cost us in lives lost, 38 million, but a 12 hour nuclear exchange involving all of the nuclear powers will negate any conventional contribution the CAF could make, so any money we spend is merely to inject economic activity in Canada and will have no impact on the outcome of a war between NATO and Russia and or China.

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