Health care system broken: CMA report
Posted Aug 10, 2011 01:39:58 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The health care system is broken. That’s what Ottawa, and the rest of the country, is telling the Canadian Medical Association as part of a national dialogue on how to transform health care in this country.
More than 200 people went to a forum held in Ottawa this past June to take part in the conversation about what needs to be done to fix it.
CMA president, Dr. Jeff Turnbull, said the overwhelming theme at Ottawa’s local forum was that the system is broken; services don’t work together, there is no transparency and the Canada Health Act is out of date.
But he says something positive came out of the meeting.
“They were ready to accept responsibility for their health,” he said.
“At the same time, the utilization of health services so they have to be responsible for their own health but also the health care system itself.”
Here in town people want to see better home and long-term care as well as looking at how to prevent people from getting sick in the first place.
Another of the overwhelming themes from the Ottawa town hall was that there are too many obstacles for people trying to get the care they need when and where they need it.
The meeting heard calls to improve home and long-term care which is something Turnbull says will be a major part of the CMA’s action plan.
“At this hospital, like so many other hospitals, are looking at ways that we can reach out into the community so that we can provide those same hospital based services at home where people can get the best care that they want and it’s better for them and it’s frankly cheaper,” he said.
The Ottawa forum also heard calls for improvements to preventative care, something Turnbull said is essential, and called for better understanding of how social situations affect people’s health.
Turnbull said there is a long road ahead but it is made easier now the association is armed with Canada’s demands.
The report, called “Voices Into Action,” is available online.
