April 10, 2007
Kamloops Daily News
Eye View

Thank you, Premier Campbell, for your invitation to join in
the "Conversation on Health Care." You and your health
minister have been crisscrossing the province for months and
listening to what thousands of British Columbians have to
say about this important topic.

I went to your website and watched the counter ticking up
the cost of health care second by second. In the short time
I visited the website, a quarter of a million dollars rolled
over on the display.

I also notice that you quote statistics claiming health care
will consume 71 per cent of our provincial budget by 2017.
I guess the point you are trying to make is that health care
costs a lot of money. But the effect of these statistics
and the counter is to generate unnecessary alarm. They
convey the impression that health care is unsustainable.

You will be relieved to know that health care is sustainable
and there is no cause for alarm. The statistics you quote
predict health care costs will increase by 8 per cent
annually. In fact, spending on health care in B.C. hasn't
been that high for a few years.

Also, those statistics underestimate the growth of
provincial revenue at only 3 per cent. Provincial revenues
have been more than double that since 2001, according to the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

So, don't worry. Health care is not in a crisis. But like
anything, it requires maintenance and upgrading.

The motives of those who would manufacture a crisis are
worrying. They hope to profit from that perception. You
only have to look as far as the hucksters who try to
convince you that they can deliver health care better. They
convey the impression that the public system is too
expensive and then claim to rescue us with their own
solutions.

You only have to look to the U.S. to realize there is a lot
of money to be made by turning health care into a commodity.

Beware of health entrepreneurs like Dr. Godley who recently
reopened his privately run False Creek Urgent Care centre.
He pretends that he is providing choice for patients even as
he charges an entrance fee of $200.

While Dr. Godley and others pretend to rescue us with their
U.S. model of private delivery of health care, the U.S. is
looking to Canada for solutions.

U.S. economist Paul Krugman says that American health care:
"is undertaken by a crazy quilt of private insurers,
for-profit hospitals, and other players who add cost without
added value. A Canadian-style single-payer system, in which
the government directly provides insurance, would almost
certainly be both cheaper and more effective than what we
have now."

The sad reality is that that the profit model provides
Americans with the worst of both worlds: high health costs
and poor health outcomes.

Beware of those who claim health care is in crisis because
of long wait times. They maintain that since patients are
waiting for care, there must be a shortage of it.

Health care only needs to be organized to maximize the flow
of patients through the system.

For example, many breast patients now wait for a mammogram,
then wait for an ultrasound, and wait again for a biopsy.
In Sault Ste. Marie, a publicly run clinic reduced wait
times by 75 per cent by consolidating these separate tests.
If a woman has a positive mammogram, the ultrasound and
biopsy are done in the same visit, streamlining the flow of
patients.

Maximizing patient flow is just one idea. Another is to
develop health care centers staffed by multidisciplinary
teams instead of the current model where a single doctor in
a single office tells his patient to wait to be tested
further or referred to a specialist.

Also, community health centres increase the flow of patients
and yet we have 1,400 fewer beds in B.C. than we had in
2001. This creates a bottleneck in hospitals because beds
are occupied by patients who can't find a bed in a
residential facility.

The number of people who receive home care support has also
decreased by 24 per cent between 2000 and 2005. This puts
added pressure on hospitals which must accept patients who
could be more efficiently treated at home.

I don't mean to suggest that you, Premier Campbell, created
these problems entirely but the solutions are clearly within
your grasp.

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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