We MUST face the health care crisis

Ontario has just lived through another provincial election, with more tenuous results than we normally achieve.  Living with a minority government likely means we'll face another election within the next two years.  The question is, will any of the political parties choose to actually acknowledge, never mind address, the elephant in the campaign room?  Neither the Liberals, nor the Conservatives, nor the NDP gave any serious thought or discussion to the crisis facing our health care system in this most recent election.  They're all afraid to tackle the issue head on.  They all cower in fear that the health care issue will cause them to lose an election. Yet, really, this is the biggest, most serious issue confronting this province today.  And it will only get worse as our aging population puts increasing pressure on the system.

I've recently started reading a book by health care analyst, Michael Rachlis, called Prescription for Excellence.  The book was published in 2003.  As I started to read it, I was astounded that the problems in the health care system that he identified way back then are exactly the same problems our health care system is facing today:  emergency room backlogs;  chronically sick older patients taking up beds in hospitals because there's no place else for them to go; not enough long-term care facilities; an inability to properly manage and treat individuals with chronic illnesses; too little attention paid to palliative care; centralization of health care delivery in the hospitals, rather than in the communities where people live; a focus in our hospitals on what's good for the administration, rather than what's good for the patient; very little attention paid to the need for home care. 

The cost of health care is rising every year, but the problems within the system don't get better. In fact, they're getting worse and approaching a critical level.  And older patients are often the ones who feel the brunt of the problems. My 91 year old mother-in-law recently was forced to spend hours on a gurney in a hospital emergency room with a broken hip while she waited for a doctor to look at her. Another elderly lady in the Niagara Falls area was told to call for an ambulance after she fell and broke her hip in the hospital lobby. 

Christie Blatchford, a reporter and columnist with the National Post, recently wrote about the abysmal way our health care system treats older patients.   Read her column, The plight of the unbending health care system.


Please feel free to comment about your experiences with the health care system.