I've been reading Jane Philpott's book, "Healthcare for All." She proposes completely revamping primary care to provide universal access to a "primary healthcare home" to everyone in Canada. She says that in education, we can provide universal access to school for children in every part of the country. Primary care could be organized this way as well. Some people already have this – she mentioned about 25% in Ontario – and that it's a far better model of practice, but we need to make it available to everyone, i.e. 100% of the population. She says it could be done within ten years and would not be expensive – about $500 per patient per year. The downstream payoff would be enormous: fewer emergency visits,better healthcare outcomes for patients, less doctor burnout.
I slightly question the focus on reducing red tape, however. It’s all very well and good to allow newcomers to practice their trade and make it less burdensome to open up new spots, but making it easier to do won’t guarantee that it’ll actually happen.
On foreign doctors, there’s only so many doctors that come to Canada and it won’t be enough to fill the gap. This is particularly true in Quebec, where bilingualism in English and French is often an additional requirement (despite the gov of QC insisting it isn’t). Furthermore, are we really saying that the way to solve our problems is to lure people away from helping thier own countries? There’s a global shortage of doctors, I’m not sure it’s the just thing to contribute to that.
What we need instead is to increase the amount of doctors this country produces domestically, and that can only be done by heavily investing in both expanding the size of our medical school and, crucially, lowering the cost of admission. Furthermore, there will only be more residency spaces if funds are made available to support them.
So yes, the conservative plan sounds like a nice, simple solution, but it’ll be a drop in the bucket that ultimately just acts as an excuse not to make the investments that are needed.
The healthcare system has been neglected by all level of government for decades. Sometimes you just have to spend the money.
I've been reading Jane Philpott's book, "Healthcare for All." She proposes completely revamping primary care to provide universal access to a "primary healthcare home" to everyone in Canada. She says that in education, we can provide universal access to school for children in every part of the country. Primary care could be organized this way as well. Some people already have this – she mentioned about 25% in Ontario – and that it's a far better model of practice, but we need to make it available to everyone, i.e. 100% of the population. She says it could be done within ten years and would not be expensive – about $500 per patient per year. The downstream payoff would be enormous: fewer emergency visits,better healthcare outcomes for patients, less doctor burnout.
Interesting article!
I slightly question the focus on reducing red tape, however. It’s all very well and good to allow newcomers to practice their trade and make it less burdensome to open up new spots, but making it easier to do won’t guarantee that it’ll actually happen.
On foreign doctors, there’s only so many doctors that come to Canada and it won’t be enough to fill the gap. This is particularly true in Quebec, where bilingualism in English and French is often an additional requirement (despite the gov of QC insisting it isn’t). Furthermore, are we really saying that the way to solve our problems is to lure people away from helping thier own countries? There’s a global shortage of doctors, I’m not sure it’s the just thing to contribute to that.
What we need instead is to increase the amount of doctors this country produces domestically, and that can only be done by heavily investing in both expanding the size of our medical school and, crucially, lowering the cost of admission. Furthermore, there will only be more residency spaces if funds are made available to support them.
So yes, the conservative plan sounds like a nice, simple solution, but it’ll be a drop in the bucket that ultimately just acts as an excuse not to make the investments that are needed.
The healthcare system has been neglected by all level of government for decades. Sometimes you just have to spend the money.