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Romanow Report Will Challenge Our Politician's Backbone
Tuesday, December 3, 2002
It is a fact in this country that it's easier to buy car parts than it is to get an appointment with a doctor. In under serviced areas like Chatham-Kent, having a family doctor is increasingly like finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's a frustrating part of life for many families.So when former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow released his much ballyhooed report last week on the future of health care in Canada, many of us had a keen ear. Health care is an issue that transcends the masses. Whether you are a farmer, factory worker or corporate executive, health care always rates as one of our most cherished privileges of being Canadian. Romanow's report was seen as a future blueprint for the sustenance of health care system across Canada.
The report is 392 pages long and if you are not into hard copy, it is readily downloadable. Mr. Romanow has called for a federal cash infusion of $6.5 billion in new money to improve the current health system. He also said the federal government should give the provinces close to the $7 billion they have been asking for. The result would be the federal government paying for at least 25% of insured health care. He's also calling for a $15 billion infusion of federal money through 2006 to expand Medicare and better accountability rules from the provinces on how it is spent.
The report also recommended $8.5-billion in short-term funding for important areas like diagnostic services, access to care in rural areas, primary care, home care and catastrophic drug costs. In fact, the report had recommendations about a lot of things. In many ways, it is reflective of royal commissions of the past. Most of it is bound for the dustbin, but when it comes to health care, everybody takes it a little bit more seriously.
The following points taken directly from the report showed some rather
ominous statistics regarding health care in rural areas.
- Life expectancy for people in predominantly rural regions is less than the Canadian average;
- Disability rates are higher in smaller communities;
- Rates for accidents, poisoning and violence are also higher in smaller communities; and
- People living in remote northern communities are the least healthy and have the lowest life and disability-free life expectancies.
Romanow has earmarked $1.5 billion to help lure health care workers and improve services in rural areas like Chatham-Kent. That's a lot of money and if even a portion of that was used to successfully cure our local health care needs, it would be well worth it. But in many ways, it mirrors a problem that all government commissions have had in the past. Throw some money at the problem and maybe it will go away. Romanow's commission could surely take a lesson from the Wallaceburg Rotary Club which initiated a scholarship program to attract local students to set up health care practices in Wallaceburg. Just think what they could to with $1.5 billion.
But of course, all of this is still a theory. Talk is cheap until these kinds of dollars actually hit the pavement. The first test will come when finance minister John Manley brings down his first budget early next year. The government has projected a budget surplus of $3 billion for this fiscal year. Romanow's plan would take all of that and more. That would surely not leave any money for defense spending and other areas of government where ministers have their collective hand out. With war looming in Iraq, Romanow's report might be even closer to the dustbin.
A few years ago a couple of friends of mine from Wallaceburg got married and moved to the greater Toronto area. On her first trip to the hospital, my friend told the appropriate authorities that her family had just moved and they didn't have a doctor. At that point she was directed to a list of doctors posted on the wall. She was told to choose from the list of over 35 physicians. She told me she was shocked. After living in Wallaceburg all her life, having to choose between 35 doctors was simply unbelievable.
So at the end of the day, the recommendations from the Romanow report will challenge the federal government. They need to address the needs of those 35 doctors on the wall as well as the doctors you don't yet see here in Chatham-Kent. Whatever happens, it's very clear the universality of health care which Canadians have enjoyed for many years is being seriously challenged. Now that Roy Romanow has chimed in, we'll see if our political leaders have the backbone to put their money ahead of their bluster.
Philip Shaw, farms 830 acres near Dresden, Ontario. He holds a Masters of Agricultural Economics and Business Degree from the University of Guelph and is a well-known commentator on agricultural issues in print, on radio and over satellite in Canada and the United States. In the Chatham-Kent Times, Phil will use his frank and forthright writing style to address political and economic issues from the local to the international stage. He is a keen observer of political life at all levels, reads widely and has travelled the world to gather fodder for his column. See what's At Issue this week.
