PROFIT® and waiting times
Private health care proponents say that PROFIT® will help reduce wait times in the public system, but this is simply not true. Health care practitioners cannot be in two places at once. Creating a private, for-profit system will take much-needed doctors, nurses, radiologists and other health care workers out of our public system. Given that we already have a shortage of health care workers, allowing for-profit health care to grow will only increase wait times in the public system.
PROFIT® is not the cure for waiting times. What we need is planning, investment and innovation within the public system.
The public system has already begun to respond to the issue of wait times. Waits have been reduced in facilities across the country like the Queensway Clinic in Toronto, the Pan-Am Clinic in Winnipeg and the Capital Health Authority in Edmonton. These, and other examples, demonstrate that effective solutions to wait times can be found within the public system.
Resources:
Final Report of the Federal Advisor on Wait Times
Health Canada | June 30, 2006
Success Stories In Medicare (PDF)
Canadian Doctors for Medicare | 2006
Public Solutions to Health Care Wait Lists
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – December 2005
Myth: A parallel private system would reduce waiting times in the public system (PDF)
Canadian Health Services Research Foundation | 2005
Evidence Boost: Manage waiting lists centrally for better efficiency (PDF)
Canadian Health Services Research Foundation | 2005
Cue Some Fresh Thinking About Health-Care Queues (DOC)
Winnipeg Free Press | Michael Rachlis | December 2, 2004
A Patients’ Bill of Rights: A Cure for Canadians’ Concerns About Medicare? (PDF)
IRPP Policy Matters Magazine | Colleen M. Flood & Tracey Epps | November 2002
Private Clinics Won’t Cut Waiting Times
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Colleen Fuller | July 1, 2000
Waiting Lists in Canada and the Potential Effects of Private Access to Health Care Services (DOC)
Department of Justice, Canada | Charles J. Wright | October 26, 1998
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