FIXING CANADA’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN 5 YEARS

Enough is enough! The government of Canada has miserably failed its citizens. Our health care system is in a deplorable state and Ottawa has its head in the sand. The federal government is no longer in a position to decide how to fix our health care system; this domain of competence must be passed on to the cities and regions of Canada as soon as possible so that a more efficient and effective health care system can be implemented. Here is the four step, five year plan I propose:

Step 1:
We have hundreds (perhaps thousands) of immigrant doctors in Canada who are unable to practice because the current “establishment” does not accept their credentials. Let them treat us! We have a doctor shortage in this country and the waiting lists are long enough! Gatineau, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Miramichi, must now have the ability whether or not to accept the medical licenses of new Canadians. Let me tell you now that many of our cities and regions will accept them. In the first year Canadian cities and regions will be given the power to choose and this will immediately add hundreds more doctors to our system. Their credentials will be verified and they will be administered a fair test. Their competence in either English or French will also be tested.

Step 2 :
In the second year, using the current boundaries of the 308 federal, electoral constituencies, we will create a network of “health zones”. Each “health zone” will be granted its own money, powers, and mandate with respect to the administrating of health care to the residents in their respective zone. Each health zone will be given $73.4 million from the federal government.
{Canada Health Transfer for 2008-2009 will be $22.6 billion. Divided by 308, the number of federal, electoral constituencies, this amounts to $73.4 million for each of the health zones}
Add to this number another $70 million that each health zone will receive from their respective provincial governments. In the case of Saskatchewan, which will have 14 health zones (as they have 14 constituencies), only $980 million would be needed from provincial coffers. When you consider that Saskatchewan intends to spend $3.5 billion on health care in that province in 2008-2009, $980 million is a bargain. Thus, Step 2 will not only provide $143.4 million to each health zone but will also free up billions of dollars of provincial money which can then be passed on to other beneficial programs. With $143 million in hand, (73.4 million from the federal government, 70 million from the provincial governments) each health zone, with an average of 90,000 people , would be much more efficient. For example $1.5 million dollars an MRI machine.
{With just 15 million dollars we could have ten of these machines! Ten MRI machines for 90,000 people!? The entire city of Ottawa (1,000,000 people) has no more than 10. A single MRI machine does approximately 4500 scans a year . How long did you or a one of your loved ones have to wait for an MRI scan?}

Step 3:
In the third year, we will pursue an aggressive recruitment campaign of foreign doctors. We will look abroad as opposed to Canada for the time being.
{This is because the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian College of Family Physicians are too monopolist to be part of such a plan. These ridiculous acceptance quota at Canadian medical schools: 60, 80, 100 students a year. We have a doctor shortage in this country! Open the floodgates! But no, the CMA and the CCFP like the prestige that comes with being a doctor. Only a select few in society are “competent” and “intelligent” enough to be doctors in this country. I say get off your high horse! We need doctors that can stitch people up, deliver babies, make casts, take blood. This does not need to take 7 years of expensive schooling! Step 5 will address the issue of educating new doctors in Canada}
The $143 million that each health zone will have will be used to recruit doctors from international medical schools judged legitimate and professional. For example, as sociologist Richard Florida explains: “the medical school in New Delhi is perhaps the best in the world.” With a population of 1.6 billion, India (most university-educated Indian citizens speak English) can surely provide our country with more doctors.

The recruiters (delegates from each health zone) will go to the best medical schools around the world and make new, interested graduates sign a contract with the following conditions:

-salary of $60,000 per year, non-taxed; (they will pay no income tax and will also flash their “physician’s card” at any business to be exempt from paying GST and/or PST. Many Canadian doctors might feel that this is not enough money. Foreign-trained doctors, given the chance to live in Canada, and under the rest of the generous conditions, would likely jump at the chance)

-mandatory three days off a week (less stress, opportunity to pursue other activities: business or pleasure. In case they feel that their salaries are not enough they can start a business on the side. They will have three days off a week. If they want to spend those days on the golf course they can do that too. We want our doctors to be happy. When they are happy they treat us better.)

-a maximum of 120 patients (less stress, can spend more time with each patient. The current 5 – 10 minute doctor visit is a joke)

-they will stay in their health zone for a minimum of 10 years. (failing this, Canada may send them home or fine them heavily. Because both rural and urban areas need doctors. They are not all going to flock to Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto)

So just how many doctors can a health zone buy? Well with $50 million, roughly a third of the 143 million, a health zone could employ 833 doctors! Imagine: 90,000 people with 833 doctors. To give the reader an idea of the current situation: according to the Saskatoon Health Region there are 300,000 people and 750 doctors operating in Saskatoon and surrounding area . Don’t have a calculator? This would mean that each doctor would have 400 patients. How can one doctor take care of four hundred people?

Step 4:
In the fourth and fifth years each health zone will begin and complete the construction of their own medical schools/treatment centres. Each health zone, having set aside 20 million dollars since year two would have 80 million dollars by year five. 80 million dollars (and 20 million dollars every year thereafter directed to the maintenance of the medical school/treatment centre) can build a fairly nice school. I reside in what will be the health zone of Ottawa West-Nepean (as this is my federal, electoral constituency). With approximately 90,000 people in our health zone an 80 million dollar medical school/treatment centre will serve us all quite nicely.

The medical school will work as follows:
A very brief (2 week) study will be done to see what the biggest health concern in the health zone is. If we have a high population of seniors our medical school’s focus will be senior care. If we have a higher demographic of children, our medical school will deal more with pediatric care. These are just two examples. Each medical school will tailor its education to suit the needs of the residents of that particular health zone.

As for the education itself, no program will take more than 2 years. The current 7+ years is too long. We want the youth of our health zone to consider medical school. If a student wants to do knee/hip surgeries, that is all he/she will study. They will work alongside surgeons throughout those two years until he/she is considered apt enough to be able to perform the operations. Many people may be shocked to think that a student with only 2 years of medical school could perform knee/hip surgeries proficiently. To them I say look at professional athletes. They perform over and over again their sport, and practice again and again their technique, until they are as good as they can be. Look at the way baseball players can hit baseballs coming at them at 100 mph. They practice again and again, hundreds of times a month, swinging the bat and hitting the ball.
This is how the school would train its students. The prospective ear, nose, throat specialist, or knee/hip surgeon will work alongside trained surgeons and practice on specially made “dummy” knees and hips, until he can perform the surgeries with his eyes closed.

I ask this question to the reader: when going into a particular surgery, would you prefer a surgeon who has studied and practiced nothing but that surgery for two years, practiced it thousands of times, dozens of times on real patients (under the supervision of a trained surgeon) OR would you take the surgeon who studied for seven years at medical school, “learned” everything about the body parts from the tip of the head to the toes, and spent hours sitting in lectures, but never actually performed/practiced a real surgery? Would you bet money on the baseball player who has swung the bat a hundred thousand times or the player who has read every book on baseball and studied the geometry of the sport? I would take the former over the latter in both cases and I would hope most other people would too.
Thus the medical school would pump put students in two years, highly proficient and professional in what they do. “Susan” might know nothing about knee/hip surgeries. But no need to worry about that. You go to “John” for that. Susan will treat you for any troubles you may have with your ear, nose, and throat.
Residents of the health zone would then go to the treatment centre (hospital) whenever they needed any type of care. One hospital per 90,000 people? Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?
As for the tuition costs, they would be kept very low. No more than 500 dollars per semester, and that would only be to pay for the supplies. As the medical school would have a treatment centre attached to it, most of their education would take place there, under the watchful eye of already trained physicians and surgeons. Teachers therefore would not need to be paid, although the health zone would pay a small stipend from its pot of $143 million to certain surgeons/physicians for giving special lectures to the students.
If additional money was ever needed by the health zone, a mere 20 dollar head tax would be put on all residents 1 year of age or older. Just twenty dollars annually, paid by the residents of the health zone would raise nearly 2 million dollars. Like I said, when 1.5 million dollars buys an MRI machine and 60,000 dollars employs a family doctor for a year, the money of the residents would not be wasted.

CONCLUSION
This four step, five year plan is simple, easy, and effective. Getting “sick” shouldn’t be the nightmare that it is today. There should be friendly nurses and doctors on hand to take care of you whenever you need. As it stands now, we face 10+ hour waits in emergency rooms, 1 in 3 Canadians do not have a family doctor, and for those of us who are fortunate enough to have a family doctor, we only see him/her for 5 minutes, long enough for him/her to check our pulse and write out a new prescription.
Furthermore, our doctors and nurses are unhappy. Stressed, overworked, and often unappreciated, they are people too. Why can’t they be healthy and happy? Happy doctors = happy patients.
Ottawa throws BILLIONS of dollars a year at the mixed up, mashed up system, hoping that somehow all that paper will save us. What we really need is an absolute overhaul of the system. Any smart organization delegates authority. Municipal governments have a mayor, a group of councilors, auditors and so on. There is a ladder of power. These ladders of power allow for more efficiency. The federal government does not have this ladder of power. Everything starts and stops in Ottawa. What does Ottawa know about the needs of the people of Keewatin, Nunavut or Nanaimo, British Columbia or Sherbrooke, Quebec? Let us delegate the matter of health to smaller, more organized health zones, and lets all get back on track to being healthy, happy, and productive.