Elk Valley and South Country Health Care Coalition Meetings
Email: pburke@evsos.com Webpage: www.evsos.com/
Health Care Coalition Meeting -May 30th and 31st in Vancouver BC Recieved Gunnar's report on his trip to Vancouver Health Care Coalition Gunnar reported that there was a number of speakers that talked on the changes in B.C.'s health care. A lot of cutbacks and hospital closures. Coalitions accross the province were organizing. Detailed report to follow from Gunnar. Friday night I attended a meeting on May 30th and 31st in Vancouver BC. There were many interesting speakers on both days. Participants had come from over all of the province to share their experiences with the the changes in the health care system. The purpose of the meeting was to find ways to work together. This was stressed by Jim Sinclair , the first speaker and Chairman of a BC Retirement Association, who said that we must fight together and raise the profile of the problem. The present government is selling our future by privatizing the public wealth. In Mister Sinclair’s opinion the people of BC know instinctively that the Liberals are wrong on the Health Care issue. Mr Sinclair was followed by the Raging Grannies who put on their usual entertaining performance. The next speaker was Dr McGregor a longtime Vancouver Physician and activist. In her opinion most of the studies show that private healthy care is doing a poor job. The quality of care in the private health care system is also worse than the public system. In nursing homes the incidence of bed sores is higher in the private system. Stuffing levels are much lower in the private industry including support staff and nurses. In a recent study published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" the authors found that the Canadian system is more efficient than the American system. Canada spends 10% on health while the USA share is 14%. Administration costs in the USA are twice as high as in Canada. A mixture of Private Practice in a public system is also not desirable. During a follow up Question and Answer period the rhetorical question was posed why the Lobby Organizations for private healthcare keep on Lobbying forever and keep on ignoring the facts. It was also felt that the public system is fractitious and that there is a shortage of every thing. Health Care funding has deceased to 9% of health care spending, even though today more tests are done which add additional costs to the system. Drug costs have had the largest t increase from 9.5% to 14% of health spending. It was felt that the health care system is shut down to save cost. Dr McGregor is of the opinion that the public system must be made excellent in order to better serve the public. The Next speaker was Svend Robinson the Maverick NDP politician from Vancouver. He said that we are in a critical fight for the survival of the public health care system. He blamed the federal Liberals for part of the problem by not enforcing the Canada Health Act he also stated the Liberals have publicly stated that they want a good public and private health care system. Mr Robinson also felt that the corporate agenda was to privatize the health care system. He blamed the Alberta government for trying to sabotage the Canada Health Council. In his opinion the Health Council must be independent of government and the Pharmacare program must be a national program. The next lecture was by Dr Lucha a Salvadorian Physician . Physicians in El Salvador have been on strike for the last 8 month. They are also fighting a privatization program in their country. The strike was declared illegal but the Dr’s will keep on fighting. The experience of the people in El Salvador points out that privatization and the parallels that happen in other countries is not a national issue but it is global in nature. Out of 855 Dr’s at the beginning of the strike 400 are still committed to the struggle . Dr Lucha emphasized that many of the Dr’s were forced to go back to work for financial reasons. The Dr’s’ re no alone in their struggle but have the support of many social and human rights groups. Some of the younger Dr’s who were still in training had to go to Cuba to finish their medical degrees. Saturday May 31, 03 On Saturday Colleen Fuller a researcher on health issues lectured to us on privatization. Her main points were: On the provincial level: there is an overall assault on the health care system the government is plundering the people of BC and giving to their friends the government is dismantling the public health care system and making it accountable to the private health care industry. On the Federal level: the government is trying to bury the Romanow Report the government is abandoning their commitment to the public healthcare system the government is not enforcing the Canadian Health Act the government is moving investment opportunities to the for profit health care industry On Saturday a number of work shops were being held. I took part in the one on Privatization some of the points were: If we do get a for profit system where will the profits go? Will they stay in Canada or will the money be invested somewhere else? Statistical information, who keeps it and who has the right to access? Who are the funders for -for profit medical care- in our respective areas? We were told that we must relearn to organize the old fashioned way by going door to door write letters to the editor have a letter box campaign put a sign in the window at election time I vote on it establish a local data base publish bulletins about kids health issues create a fact sheet develop a fact sheet of organizations that have similar problems list of who to call for what We where then given a diagram which consisted of 5 points to determine at what stage of development an organization is. create core group identify issues, increased public participation mobilize more people into action set up coalitions gunnar kahn gunnar kahn kahng@titanlink.com 250 865 7606