- Improve the bed to bureaucrat ratio (more beds; fewer bureaucrats). Special effort should be made to expand availability of lower cost long-term care and recuperation beds, leaving high-cost post-op beds available for people who really need them;
- Create a national pharmacare programme with bulk buying of drugs at the federal level to provide at lower cost to provinces. Support the University of British Columbia Therapeutics Initiative and expand its approach to ensuring drugs are only registered if they do more good than harm, across Canada;
- Focus on efficient use of resources. Not every patient needs every diagnostic test. This bioethics discussion has been growing in the medical literature. Avoiding waste is a sensible approach, but can be difficult to implement. (“From an Ethics of Rationing to an Ethics of Waste Avoidance,” New England Journal of Medicine, May 24, 2012);
- Provide student loan forgiveness incentives for graduating doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health care professionals who agree to staff rural facilities and family practice clinics where recruitment is currently a problem;
- Enshrine a policy that seniors’ care must be provided in the communities where they or their families live;
- Expand home support and home care programs and assisted-living services to support people with chronic care needs, including many seniors who wish to stay in their own homes and communities; and
- Ensure that the Canada Health Act is enforced. (i.e., the federal government cannot wash its hands of health care.)
Elizabeth MayMP for Saanich and Gulf Islands