National Affairs
Differences in 'Canadian values'
Claire Hoy
Remember that old Red Rose tea commercial ending with the British tea drinker lamenting, "Only in Canada, you say? Pity." Well, it's not tea, but the same thing could be said about our political fixation with perpetuating the myths about the importance of making sure that governments cling to their monopoly on heath care.

Despite irrefutable signs that our system, while having many positive features, is wildly over-priced and inefficient - and, as many studies show, trailing most industrialized countries in terms of results and efficiency- most politicians still recoil at the thought of making meaningful changes. Instead, as demonstrated in both the recent federal and provincial budgets, the way they deal with the system is simply to keep pouring more money into the bottomless pit.

Consider this. Since 1997/98, the federal government alone has transferred $36-billion to the provinces for health care more than what would have been required simply to keep up with population increases and inflation. In 1997, the average Canadian waited 11.9 weeks to receive the necessary care, and that's after a referral to a specialist by a general practitioner. By 2006, despite all that money, wait times jumped by almost 50 percent to 17.8 weeks.

Wait times for a CT scan went up to 4.3 weeks in 2006 from 4.1 in 1997, and to 10.3 weeks from 9.6 weeks for MRI tests, despite dramatic increases in the number of CT scanners and MRI machines (41.5 percent and 233.3 percent respectively.) And so it goes. Access to doctors and nurses also continues to be exacerbated; yet all our politicians do is talk about it. And write more cheques.

There are few better examples of this mule-headed stubbornness than the recent decision by Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman, one of Premier Dalton McGuinty's most ardent ideologues, to deny an application from the Don Mills Surgical Unit, a private company, to perform much-needed knee replacements.

Provincial Tory Leader John Tory says the company would have performed 1,500 knee replacements at a cost of $1,082 less than performing the same surgeries at community hospitals, a total estimated savings of $1.6 million.

Accusing Smitherman of replacing "sound business principles" with "extremist ideology," Tory wrote in a letter to the National Post that "Patients requiring knee surgery don't really care how heir health care is provided, as long as it adheres to the highest standards and they only need pay with their OHIP card."

So what does Smitherman say? "I will never support the outsourcing of those knee surgeries to any private, for-profit-motivated organization," adding, "the not-forprofit public health-care system is the best expression of Canadian values."

Isn't getting the best care at the best price in the quickest time a real "Canadian value?" And Smitherman should explain how it is that Don Mills surgical already receives provincial funding to perform knee arthroscopies, eye surgeries and other procedures? It has been a licensed part of our health care system for 40 years. Its' latest application was a simple expansion of what they are already doing, and doing well.

Undaunted by reality, however, Smitherman fired off his own letter responding to a Post editorial in which he actually boasted that our current health care system is so terrific that - wait for it - "In Ontario, knee replacement surgery s now performed on nine out of 10 patients within 307 days," which he claims is a 133-day decrease in just 18 months. (And that's the average. Waits of two or three years are not uncommon.)

Well, whoopdeedoo! Never mind that he cavalierly dismisses a company which could reduce that waiting time considerably - and save taxpayers money too - Smitherman is thrilled that nine out of 10 of you (there's no word how long the 10th person must wait) only have to endure almost a year of pain and agony in order to preserve the "purity" of a "public" system which is already more than one-third private anyway.

How is it a "Canadian value" to allow a company to perform eye surgeries, but it goes against those "Canadian values" to allow it to perform knee-replacement surgery?

And forget about the usual red herrings. We're not talking about an "American system" or service for the rich. The Don Mills proposal, in keeping what it's been doing for four decades, would simply cut down the waiting list by performing much-needed knee-replacements paid for by OHIP, just the same way it's done in public hospitals. The only difference is, they can do it more cheaply. Indeed, as Tory pointed out, the savings from this proposal, which Smitherman spurned, could pay for an additional 276 knee surgeries.

Instead, Smitherman wants you to suffer. But to ease the pain, at least you'll take some comfort in knowing that your pain is patriotic.