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A Naturopathic Doctor's suggestions to stem the decline in the Canadian health care system.

The CBC notes that the latest Stats Canada report identifies 4.1 million Canadians lack a family doctor. More people are disgruntled with the Canadian health care system and some say that this is proof that we need to privatize health care.

Canadians have heard the debate for quite some time now, two tier health care versus universal health care - what do Canadians really want? In 2007, Michael Moore came out with the documentary Sicko showing the benefits of socialized medicine versus private medicine, albeit in a very biased documentary. Nonetheless, I believe Canadians were inspired by this movie and oppose the privatization of medicine.

Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon who owns a private health clinic & is the current president of the Canadian Medical Association is in favour of private health care. Arguments are made that private clinics will help to decrease long wait times and will result in better patient care. Recently the CBC aired a story about another "Michael Moore-like" documentary making waves in the United States - this time, the documentary entitled 'A short course in brain surgery' which can be viewed on YouTube - takes the stance that Canada's universal health care system is not as rosy as it has been made out to be.

http://www.cbc.ca/video/popup.html?http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/vsu/wmv-hi/charles-tube-tumor080222.wmv


In any debate, there are always two factions with completely polar views and they refuse to see the positive points mentioned by their opponents. And so progress or significant breakthrough solutions are hard to come by.

Here are two ideas I've thought about for some time now that would both decrease the cost of health care and decrease wait times and the lack of medical doctors.

1)Implement an integrative approach to medicine. Create hundreds of health centres throughout the province where various health care professionals work in tandem to address the concerns of patients. Working as a team, we can address the cause(s) of disease be it physical, nutritional, psychological, etc... Once you address the fundamental causes and teach patients how to reach their optimal health, we will see visits to the doctor's office decrease hence saving money and freeing up appointment slots. Unfortunately, when fiscal challenges present themselves, provinces begin to de-list medical services. In British Columbia, naturopathic medicine was de-listed and here in Ontario, several services have gone by the way-side. This approach causes people to skip visits to their health care professionals and only go in when the problem becomes much worse. The best time to address a condition is right from the beginning. A pro-active approach decreases the impact both financially and physiologically in the long run than waiting til the problem gets worse. Address things today!

2) Taking emotions out of the equation, my left-sided, logical brain tells me that there should be a nominal fee (with most of the cost being paid for by the provinces) when you go in to see your doctor or health care practitioner. Why? This creates an incentive for people to take care of their health. Economic theory shows us that people take better care of things when there is a value placed on it. That is why you don't see people throwing trash onto their own yards but some of these same people won't think twice about littering the streets or the parks. This is because garbage would decrease the value of their property and the enjoyment that they derive from it. However throwing trash elsewhere does not affect them personally (or so they think) and that's why we see these litter bugs.

Canadians generally view the health care system as "free" because no one pays any money upfront and hence, do not have as much incentive to take care of their health as one would if they knew they had to pay a fee with each visit. Now I don't know what that fee should be, but it shouldn't be restrictive whereby it stops people from seeing a health care professional because they can't afford it, but the fee should be enough so that people VALUE their health more.

I'm curious what others have to say about these two ideas. I expect that there would be a mini-backlash against my second proposition, but let's be honest and look at the situation here. Already, 41 cents for every dollar collected by the Ontario government is spent on our ailing health care system. And this is projected to go up drastically as the baby boomers age and medical school spots increase to tackle the family physician shortage. Health care funding seems to be a bottomless pit and new & innovative solutions must be considered. Now we just need a bold politician to implement these changes.

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