Healthy concerns

The NDP health critic wants the federal government to be more involved with the province for health-care management.

MP Megan Leslie (NDP, Halifax), who is also her party’s health critic in Parliament, paid a visit to Thunder Bay to host two panel discussions on Canada’s health-care system Tuesday. MP Bruce Hyer (NDP, Thunder Bay – Superior North) joined Leslie at the first discussion panel held at the 55 Plus Centre.

The newly appointed health critic said she wanted to go across Canada to familiarize herself with the issues affecting Canadians. Leslie, a poverty lawyer, said people would tell her they needed to cut their pills in half because they couldn’t afford another prescription.

Leslie said Canada’s health-care system isn’t complete. The country is off to a good start, but is only in the first phase of a plan to provide free health-care to all Canadians.

While health care falls under provincial responsibilities, Leslie said the federal government could show leadership by ensuring that everyone involved in health care are informed and working together.

"This is exactly a role for the federal health system and for the federal health minister (Leona Aglukkaq)," Leslie said. "Canadian Health Act says there are some strings attached and you have to meet certain criteria and certain performance indicators. So, that’s a perfect example of how the federal government could get involved by creating these pockets of funding with strings attached."

Unfortunately, the Conservative government doesn’t want that role, she said.

She said she wants to do is bust these myths and set the record straight that Canada has a good health-care system.

Companies profiting from the sick, privatization and myths of ballooning health-care costs are the roots of these problems, she said.

"Canada is actually paying some of the highest drug prices in the world," Leslie said. "We could negotiate for drug prices. Right now, everyone one of us is a single buyer. What if Canada negotiated with pharmaceutical companies to get lower drug rates? We could save millions…some people are saying we could save billions of dollars for Canadians and the public health care system."

"There are solutions such as attacking social determents to health, thinking about PharmaCare and long term care," she said.

Hyer said the health-care system had degraded over the years and that the federal contribution for health-care has dropped from 50 per cent in the 1960s to its lowest point at 17 per cent in 2002.

He added while the provinces manage health care there should be a universal standard set by the federal government that each province should meet.

Sara Williamson, co-chair of the Thunder Bay Health Care Coalition, said she had attended the to get a better understanding on what the government could do to help health care on a federal level.

One of the issues raised was the amount of money provided for patients to receive treatments. Williamson said travel grants are inadequate and found it pathetic that people had to raise money at a local coffee shop to raise money for a family.

She said she hadn’t heard much about what the federal government had done to impact Canadian health care besides mental health.

"There could be more pull together with the provinces to work out what could be in a national policy and set common standards —that would be wonderful," Williamson said. "There are good things and bad things with Thunder Bay’s health care. Some things are getting better but there are big gaps in just about every area."