A commentary by a resident of North Saanich.
If I were to criticize Dr. Shaun Peck’s recent opinion piece about Australia’s health-care system, it would be to note that many other countries also follow a similar if not identical model.
In most, if not all cases, per capita costs are lower, and the overall quality of health care is far superior to what we now see across Canada with our collapsing, if not outright, broken health-care system.
An example of stupidity is to repeat the same experiment with failed results time after time and continue to do so with the expectation that the results will somehow be different the next time.
We have thrown more and more financial resources at the same health-care model for decades and the results have not changed for the better; indeed, they have gotten worse.
We have seen the medical system in B.C. virtually collapse around our ears over the past 10 years, and we still adhere to the same model.
We keep repeating the same experiment with the same results. In fact, we have seen numerous efforts on legal fronts to thwart any alternatives in the name of protecting Canada’s universal health care system.
There seems to be a belief amongst many that somehow we will have a better system if we prohibit the presence of any form of private sector health care.
That policy alone put us in the company of Cuba, China and perhaps North Korea as the only countries in the world to do so. Somehow, there is the belief that if there is private sector delivery we will automatically have the United States system of health care. That is simply not true.
While there are many criticisms of the U.S. system, many 91原创s have found that they can get timely care in the United States while being denied the same in their own country.
I have known many, many individuals who, out of frustration and need, have sought care outside of Canada either because of interminable waits often involving excruciating pain, unacceptable delays in treatment or the rationing of diagnostic services.
I number myself amongst those in the latter instance.
The key point in Peck’s opinion piece is his observation that “the Canada Health Act does not allow any private pay in provincial health care delivery.”
We have seen this province go to great lengths to put those offering alternative private services out of business to enforce this “edict” and maintain the “sanctity” of the B.C. health care system.
Perhaps it is far better in the minds of some to have no services at all than to allow an alternative which might alleviate pain, waiting times and permit earlier diagnosis?
As Peck observes, “it is time for a change” and I would suggest that we need to hold federal and provincial politicians’ feet to fire to affect those changes now — the system is broken!
Continuing to adhere year after year to a broken health-care model based on outdated utopian socialist dreams is unacceptable and irresponsible in the extreme.
