Most healthcare in Canada is publicly funded, privately delivered

Well, here we go again. Yet another kerfuffle caused by absolutist ideologues who are so hell bent on forcing their immovable views on the rest of us that they are resorting to fear tactics. “Ontario Health Minister Won’t Rule out Privatization as Option to Help ER Crisis”—screams the headline in the Toronto Star (a newspaper known for its extremely biased reporting on health care). The article comes after Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones had a press scrum. The only problem is that’s not quite what she said. Here’s the tweet from Mark McAllister, who embarrassingly reached a similar conclusion in his summary: My question to Minister @SylviaJonesMPP about possible privatization of health care in Ontario. Her response? That the province is “looking at options." Read: CMA should be advocating for pensions for physicians At no point does the Minister say she is going to privatize emergency rooms. Her quote is: “Look, we’ve always had a public health system in the province of Ontario and we will continue to do so.” Exactly what part of this screams 'privatization'? Even the snippet after where she refers to looking at 'options' she clearly mentions other jurisdictions in Canada where, you know, you have public health care. The reality is that public health care is for the most part, privately delivered in Canada. Take your family doctor, for example (assuming you are lucky enough to have a family doctor). Supposing you go to your doctor to get assessed. In Ontario, your family doctor will likely get paid $36.85 (see page A5 on the Schedule of Benefits). Out of that $36.85, your doctor will allot some of it for the receptionist, the nurse, the cleaners, the rent, the computers and so on. The remainder is the profit, which family doctors will keep for themselves. Your family doctor is a private business. The infuriating thing about this kerfuffle is that this kind of absolutist, hyperbolic nonsense has prevented real advances in health care over the past 20 years. Every time there is a new proposal on how to look at health care differently, some nitwit politician screams out that we are opening the door to two-tier American style health care. The new idea gets shut down without taking a thorough look at its merits. Read: All Ontarians should hope new health minister Sylvia Jones succeeds It’s the rigid, inflexible thinking by geniuses like Jagmeet Singh that prevent any such exploration of new ideas. Just have a look at our hospitals. We currently have a crisis with our hospitals over capacity and many waiting in ERs for beds. Yet we still do procedures in hospitals that could be done elsewhere, and free up hospital capacity. For example, there is ample evidence that independently operating cataract surgery clinics are more efficient and can cut cataract surgery waiting lists. In Canada, these clinics would have to be funded by public health insurance. All absolutists like Singh see is that procedures will be done in a “private” clinic, and are therefore un-Canadian and Tommy Douglas must be rolling in his grave to hear of such a possibility. Fun fact: Tommy Douglas supported user fees for health care. Singh and his absolutists would rather you go blind on two-year waitlists than have publicly funded health care done in a way they don’t approve. To be completely fair, there are some legitimate concerns about doing procedures in independent clinics. For example, there was concern that colonoscopies in outpatient settings were suboptimal. However, those concerns were addressed by some needed changes made by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, with the setting of minimum standards and inspections. As a result of that, there was a strong feeling that colonoscopies could be done safely and efficiently outside of hospitals. And let’s face it, it’s not as if public institutions are without issues either. Remember the time there was concern the Niagara hospital mishandled a c.difficile outbreak? Or the public nursing home that has been shut to new admissions for over a year? In fact there’s a suggestion that harm to patients in public hospitals costs $1 billion a year. No matter if public or private, so long as human beings are involved, mistakes will get made. What’s really needed is a way to do appropriate inspection and review of facilities that are funded by the public purse, so that mistakes are minimized. Then let them get on with their jobs. What I don’t get is how these folk don’t recognize the hypocrisy of their views. In their mind, it is okay for a family doctor to bill OHIP for a blood pressure check, then use that money to pay for their clinic and keep the profit. But it’s not okay for a gastroenterologist to bill OHIP for a colonoscopy in a health facility (which is safe to do), and use that money to pay for their clinic and keep the profit. Or for an ophthalmologist to bill OHIP for a cataract removal out of hospital (also safe to do) to pay for their clinic and keep the profit. And they accuse Sylvia Jones of promoting a two-tiered approach to medicine?? What about the fact that these private clinics charge patients for some things? Um…..have you ever gone to your family doctor for a Driver’s Medical? You know it’s not covered by public health insurance right? And you have to pay your family doctor for it? How about a sick note? An employment form? The reality is that ALL clinics will charge you for things that public health insurance won’t cover. As our healthcare system continues to collapse all around us, we need to take a thoughtful, intelligent and open-minded look at how we deliver health care. Yes it should be paid for by the public purse. But we need to recognize the reality that appropriately funding private clinics (with levers to ensure high quality care) is the most effective way start clearing the immense backlog of health care cases. As for absolutists who snarl at the mere mention of the phrase “private,” while everyone with a modicum of intelligence recognizes that Star Trek is a much better franchise, let me leave them with this from the other, weaker franchise: NB: My thanks to Dr. Hemant Shah, who inspired the title of this blog with his statements on healthcare delivery in Canada. Dr. Sohail Gandhi is a former president of the OMA and opinions are his and not necessarily the opinions of the OMA Board. This article is a reprint from his blog site: justanoldcountrydoctor.com. Read: What role should nurse practitioners play in fixing healthcare?

Most healthcare in Canada is publicly funded, privately delivered

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