Health care system needs more than organizational fixes
After reading Geoff Strong’s letter I felt I had to make a few comments.
Firstly, I have a great deal of respect for our Cowichan Hospital staff. I too had an operation nearly 30 years ago that saved my life. However the idea that our system only needs some fixes for “organizational problems” is about 40 years out of date.
Canada’s system ranks as one of the lowest in the world compared to equivalent countries with universal health care systems despite spending the second highest amount of money per capita out of 28 countries. We rank 26th out of 28 as far as the number of physicians per 1,000 people. We rank 14th out of 28 as far as to the number of acute care beds per 1,000 people. We stand at 22 out of 28 regarding the number of CT scanners per million people and 21st out of 28 as to the number of MRI machines per million people.
When Tommy Douglas and his party came up with the idea of a universal system they had no idea about the incredibly expensive drugs and operations that would be available in the future. They had great intentions but they were not aware that they were designing the ultimate pyramid scheme. We had a fairly young population at that time so there were about four young people contributing to the system using small amounts of resources per one older person using large amounts of resources. Now the ratio has nearly reversed creating a perfect storm of more people taking out money, less people putting in money, more people using resources, and more and more elaborate and expensive procedures being available every year.
Keith Washington
Mill Bay