The week spanning July 10–17 was a revealing one for Canadian health care, and what we have witnessed is not good.
Meanwhile, over in Victoria, B.C., our country’s 13 premiers were meeting to discuss health care, but talks never went beyond the usual squabble over money.
The premiers wanted the federal health transfer payments increased from 22 percent of health care costs to 35 percent. The government responded with a blatant “no” to that particular request and said the provinces’ monetary calculations failed to consider the additional $2.85 billion to cover surgical backlogs and the roughly $70 billion allotted to health care over the past two years to battle the pandemic.
Both the B.C. Supreme Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal have now ruled against Dr. Brian Day and his attempts to modernize health-care delivery in Canada.
The legal decision allowed that the rights of some patients may be violated by wait lists that deny their access to timely health care, but it is more important that the government monopoly on health care be sustained so it can ensure the equitable provision of health care and prevent the creation of a two-tier system.
The families of patients that are daily denied care (and in the situations above) are likely unimpressed by the court’s ideological attachment to the notion of equal access and its insistence that the system remain unchanged.
Based on all of the above, the logical question becomes: “What’s the plan?”
What are we going to do? Fire a health minister every time someone dies?
Every extra dollar assigned to health care is laden with serious implications for every other social expenditure, including education. How much more are we willing to allot to health care?
It’s difficult to expect the court system to consider the financial ramifications of its decisions since it functions within a strictly legal context. However, we do expect the courts to examine the evidence and rule with consistency when upholding (or claiming to uphold) charter principles. Yet, the B.C. Court of Appeal has failed to do so.
Canadian courts ruled in favour of the few over the many when they agreed to an individual’s right to what is now called Medical Assistance in Dying. In a legal system that is so obsessed with rights and equality, and laws have been changed to allow individuals to choose death over pain, one would think that the courts would rule that an individual has the right to timely treatment that would relieve pain.
Canadians are at a crossroads. It’s time to stop talking about money for health care and start talking about changing health care.