In a succession of dispassionate presentations the premiers of the provinces presented their agenda proposals for the upcoming First Ministers Conference on November 15.
Beside the economic crisis, which has the nation seized with concern health care was the high priority on the list with the majority of the delegates. All delegates stressed the importance of health care whilst managing to steer clear of any initiatives that specifically addressed their provincial concerns.
Home care, drug costs, geriatric care, wait times, day care, there is a plethora of issues to tackle ⎯ the premiers were decidedly vague about what exactly they wanted.
The Fraser Institute just released their report titled Paying More, Getting Less: 2008 Report surmising that the Canada’s current health care system is unsustainable. Provinces can no longer provide adequate health care with their current resources.
The report revealed that New Brunswick and Manitoba face the greatest monetary crunch, with New Brukswick projected to be spending 50 per cent of its total revenues of health care within 11 years while Manitoba could hit the 50 per cent mark within 12 years.
Earlier this week, officials from the New Brunswick Health Coalition held a media conference to release findings from a national report called Eroding Public Medicare: Lessons and Consequences of For-Profit Health Care Across Canada.
In the past few months, Health Minister Mike Murphy has thrown around the idea of privately owned clinics for the delivery of public services such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) procedures or CT scans.
Tory Health critic Claude Landry says Health Minister Mike Murphy is out of touch if he thinks exploring privatized health care in New Brunswick is a smart move. However, the recent investigations could be a long-overdue acknowledgement that the medicare system needs an overhaul.
Conservative Leader of the Government of Canada has a questionable track record because of undermining medicare as head of the right-wing National Citizens Coalition from 1998-2002.
Economic downtown aside, Canada’s health care was in need of reform. Now, with a looming federal deficit on the horizon meeting the basic health needs of Canadians citizens must be achieved through different means other than relying on the federal purse.
