OTTAWA — Canada’s top doctor bluntly decried the “nasty” politicking that has erupted around the country’s H1N1 response and challenged federal politicians to hold an open, honest discussion about how to fund future health care.
Wednesday, in her first major speech as head of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Anne Doig told the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto that both doctors and patients are frustrated that politicians “waged a war of words alleging mismanagement of the nation’s response to H1N1.
“As a family physician whose primary focus is her patients, I say this partisan political posturing must stop.”
Instead, she urged politicians to honestly discuss the rising demand for and cost of health services as the boomer generation ages, what she called the “silver tsunami.”
Canadians “have got to realize they can’t afford the health-care system they think they’re paying for. If we want to pay for more and we want to have a solely taxation-based system, then we need to understand what that means,” she told Sun Media.
Instead, “Canada’s federal politicians have completely abdicated their duty to fulfil the legacy of our once proud health system,” she said in her speech. “They prefer to wrap themselves in the Canadian flag, dismissing any criticism of our health-care system as unpatriotic.”
As an example, Doig pointed to the continuing refusal of the Conservative government to release $500 million in promised funding to the Canada Health Infoway, which works on better use of information technology to improve quality of care.
“Unfortunately they haven’t been transparent enough to come forward and tell us what the reason is,” Doig said.
She said improving care and funding needs to be thrashed out long before the First Ministers’ Health Accord expires in 2014. The 2004 accord guaranteed federal funding of $41.2 billion over 10 years.
A recent report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information said health spending nationwide will surpass $183 billion this year — or $5,452 per capita.
“The current political environment — with its minority parliaments, economic preoccupations and dark deficit clouds on the horizon for the foreseeable future — isn’t exactly conducive to bold, innovative thinking,” Doig warned.
christina.spencer@sunmedia.ca
