Layton accused of hypocrisy for visiting private clinic
Chretien, Hargrove also attacked. I'm not out to kill public health-care system: Canadian Medical Association president-elect
MARGARET MUNRO
CanWest News Service
Monday, June 18, 2007
Canada's top doctor singled out New Democrat leader Jack Layton yesterday for "hypocrisy" for undergoing hernia treatment at a private Toronto medical clinic.
But Brian Day, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association, was quick to note Layton is in good company.
Former prime ministers Paul Martin, Jean Chretien and Joe Clark also have been treated at private medical clinics, Day told the annual meeting of the Canadian Science Writers' Association.
And he said union leader Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Autoworkers, proved a master at "queue jumping" when he got in for an MRI within 24 hours of injuring his leg.
"Even I couldn't do that," said Day, the outspoken and media savvy orthopedic surgeon who takes over in August as president of the CMA, which represents 62,000 physicians across Canada.
Day, who will serve a one-year term, has been busy honing his arguments - and anecdotes - for what is sure to be a lively year for the normally staid medical organization.
Day, dubbed "Dr. Profit" and the "Darth Vader of health care" by his critics, is a well-known proponent of private clinics and has been operating the highly successful Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver since 1996.
In an hour-long speech yesterday, he said Canada's health-care system is inefficient, run by a bloated and expanding bureaucracy, and governed by political leaders who are hypocrites when it comes to their own personal health care.
He flashed up pictures of Layton and the prime ministers who have railed against the evils of private medical clinics, saying they have visited private clinics for treatment in recent years.
"We need some honesty," said Day, who argues it is impossible for the politicians to deliver on their promises of equal access to health care for everyone, for free. "We can't make it equal, but we can make it good for people."
Day said the public has the mistaken impression he is out to destroy the public health-care system and adopt a U.S.-style system that has left millions of Americans without health coverage.
"No doctor in Canada I know wants a U.S. system."
But Day said the status quo in Canada is "not acceptable."
Escalating costs, a myriad of new and often costly medical technologies and drugs, and aging baby boomers are putting huge and growing strains on the system.
Private clinics can run, and in fact already are running, beside the public system to make it more cost effective, he said.
Many of the customers at his Vancouver clinic - where people can get hips, knees and other operations - are health-care workers sent by the Workman's Compensation Board that pays for the more timely treatment offered at the clinic because it wants to get people back to work.
"I believe the public system needs the support of the private sector," Day said. He argues health-care needs to be more efficient, effective and responsible, three principles Ottawa left out when it borrowed liberally from the eight tenets set out in Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan Medical Insurance Act.
As evidence of the inefficiency, he says his Vancouver clinic sent one person to negotiate a recent service contract.
The public system, he said, sent 21 people and not one of them had the power to make the decision.
There has been an explosion, he says, in the growth of middle management in the public system in the last decade.
"Not in doctors, not in nurses, but middle management," he says.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
Chretien, Hargrove also attacked. I'm not out to kill public health-care system: Canadian Medical Association president-elect
MARGARET MUNRO
CanWest News Service
Monday, June 18, 2007
Canada's top doctor singled out New Democrat leader Jack Layton yesterday for "hypocrisy" for undergoing hernia treatment at a private Toronto medical clinic.
But Brian Day, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association, was quick to note Layton is in good company.
Former prime ministers Paul Martin, Jean Chretien and Joe Clark also have been treated at private medical clinics, Day told the annual meeting of the Canadian Science Writers' Association.
And he said union leader Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Autoworkers, proved a master at "queue jumping" when he got in for an MRI within 24 hours of injuring his leg.
"Even I couldn't do that," said Day, the outspoken and media savvy orthopedic surgeon who takes over in August as president of the CMA, which represents 62,000 physicians across Canada.
Day, who will serve a one-year term, has been busy honing his arguments - and anecdotes - for what is sure to be a lively year for the normally staid medical organization.
Day, dubbed "Dr. Profit" and the "Darth Vader of health care" by his critics, is a well-known proponent of private clinics and has been operating the highly successful Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver since 1996.
In an hour-long speech yesterday, he said Canada's health-care system is inefficient, run by a bloated and expanding bureaucracy, and governed by political leaders who are hypocrites when it comes to their own personal health care.
He flashed up pictures of Layton and the prime ministers who have railed against the evils of private medical clinics, saying they have visited private clinics for treatment in recent years.
"We need some honesty," said Day, who argues it is impossible for the politicians to deliver on their promises of equal access to health care for everyone, for free. "We can't make it equal, but we can make it good for people."
Day said the public has the mistaken impression he is out to destroy the public health-care system and adopt a U.S.-style system that has left millions of Americans without health coverage.
"No doctor in Canada I know wants a U.S. system."
But Day said the status quo in Canada is "not acceptable."
Escalating costs, a myriad of new and often costly medical technologies and drugs, and aging baby boomers are putting huge and growing strains on the system.
Private clinics can run, and in fact already are running, beside the public system to make it more cost effective, he said.
Many of the customers at his Vancouver clinic - where people can get hips, knees and other operations - are health-care workers sent by the Workman's Compensation Board that pays for the more timely treatment offered at the clinic because it wants to get people back to work.
"I believe the public system needs the support of the private sector," Day said. He argues health-care needs to be more efficient, effective and responsible, three principles Ottawa left out when it borrowed liberally from the eight tenets set out in Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan Medical Insurance Act.
As evidence of the inefficiency, he says his Vancouver clinic sent one person to negotiate a recent service contract.
The public system, he said, sent 21 people and not one of them had the power to make the decision.
There has been an explosion, he says, in the growth of middle management in the public system in the last decade.
"Not in doctors, not in nurses, but middle management," he says.
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007