State of BC Health Care
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- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
Your August 2024 monthly update from
the
BC Health Coalition
UPDATES
Here’s what really happens when governments cut corners by outsourcing surgeries to private clinics.
The Conservative Party of BC have made a scary election pitch to fix wait lists for surgeries and diagnostic services by expanding “publicly funded partnerships in non-governmental facilities”. In other words, BC Conservative leader John Rustad wants to increase the use of private clinics, claiming this model will help put “patients first”.
But a large body of international evidence and failed Canadian experiments clearly shows that private clinics erode the public health care system we all rely on. In fact, outsourcing publicly funded surgeries has proven to put profits, not patients, first. READ MORE
"VOTE PUBLIC HEALTH CARE" CAMPAIGN UPDATE
Just seven weeks... before the election, BC United leader Kevin Falcon made a curve-ball decision to yield to rival John Rustand and the Conservative Party of BC.
Rustad’s party is ideologically opposed to public health care and has proposed extreme health care cuts. With the BC Conservatives taking the lead in a recent poll, we need to mobilize quickly and broadly to let British Columbians know the ways that a BC Conservative government would dismantle our health care system.
The October 19 election promises to focus heavily on health care. This means many voters will face a stark choice: vote for or against the future of our public health care system.
This election, help ensure a win for public health care.
If you are a BC Health Coalition individual member or part of a member organization, join us for a members-only reveal of our health care solutions platform, elections guide, and voter education plan. Come strategize on how we can work together to identify and support candidates who will commit to championing real health care solutions. If you aren't a member yet, sign up for a membership before registering! REGISTER HERE
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FROM OUR MEMBERS: ELECTION SPOTLIGHT
ARRC BC Engagement Kit
Action for Reform of Residential Care is advocating for reform of BC's long-term care system. This Community Engagement Resource Kit provides well-researched background and suggests questions voters across the province can ask of their local candidates in the lead-up to the election.
Council of Canadians
Council members are calling for water to be a priority this election. Sign their campaign pledge calling for the safeguarding of clean drinking water to be a top priority for the next government.
COSCO News Election Special
The Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of BC has produced a Elections '24 guide. Click here to download the guide, which is full of important information about voting in this election and twelve crucial priorities seniors' organizations are watching.
BC Hospice & Palliative Care Association
BCHPCA is committed to ensuring that hospice and palliative care receive the attention they deserve on government platforms. They have prepared a document with key messages designed to raise awareness and educate government officials about the significance of hospice palliative care.
BC Poverty Reduction Coalition
Just in time for the BC election, the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition urges party leaders to take action on three key poverty-reduction policy sectors: housing, transportation, and assistance rates. Download their elections guide and sign their digital postcard to echo the call for poverty reduction policy in BC!
BC Federation of Labour
For a breakdown of issues that matter to workers and ideas for questions to ask candidates about their commitments for workers, take a look at the videos and resources created for the Check the Record campaign.
Hospital Employees Union
Hospital Employees are mobilizing to get out the vote this election. The HEU Votes campaign website includes a helpful review of public health care track records in BC's political history.
Public Health News, Updates & Resources
Temporary foreign workers struggle to access health care in Canada: UN report Privatization and systemic racism are harming health care, not migrants
Equal hospital care for Campbell River, North Island long overdue Five years of lobbying fallen on deaf ears
BC First Nations to get 13 primary care centres The government and First Nations Health Authority say they see the centres as a key step toward increasing access to culturally safe, primary health care in B.C.
As COVID Surges, the High Price of Viral Denial Canada’s health system reels as by one estimate 1,000 die weekly. Each infection carries risks. Where’s the prevention?
B.C. Greens propose community health care centre network New plan for primary care aimed at addressing lack of access to family doctors
Checked: BC Conservatives on Harm Reduction Vending Machines Gwen O’Mahony’s viral video makes bold claims. Do experts agree? A Tyee election report.
Health Coalitions in the News
Premiers hear privatization is a poison pill Hundreds of frontline health care workers and patient advocates rallied outside the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax on Tuesday, July 16 to send a strong message to Canada’s premiers that our health care is not for sale, and we want universal pharmacare now.
Shoppers Drug Mart wants to set up 250 for-profit pharmacy care clinics by 2025 Jason MacLean, chair of the Canadian Health Coalition, questions whether profit-driven corporations like Loblaw should be trusted with such responsibilities. “We’re going to have a company that was involved in break price fixing scandal, and has been boycotted very effectively by hundreds of thousands of consumers because of grocery price gouging” said MacLean to the Globe and Mail on August 9, 2024. “They’re the ones that we’re going to trust to deliver health care in our best interest? Their only interest is profit.”
Privatization concerns sparked by potential new Alberta health-care 'prototype' Provincial government provided $85K grant to group in December 2023 to provide business case. But a for-profit operator of an urgent care centre in Alberta would be a first, and something the public health non-profit group Friends of Medicare calls a possible "massive, unprecedented shift." "This would be a huge step to how we deliver health care," said Chris Galloway, the organization's executive director.
A Regina health clinic is offering a subscription for 'faster service,' but critics say it's privatization Ministry of Health investigating whether service violates the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act. “It’s, I think, a slightly less-known and slightly more subtle sort of type of privatization that’s been creeping into the Canadian health-care system,” said Krystal Lewis, director of the Saskatchewan Health Coalition, following an email addressed to a seven-year-old Regina girl, encouraging patients to sign up for a patient plan through the health-care company Healtheon.
Giving ‘Heart and Soul.’ A Status Report on BC’s Health-Care Workers Union leaders credit the NDP government for restored contracts and upped wages. But life on the frontlines is ‘tough.’ BCGEU, which represents health science professionals such as social workers, counsellors, care aids and administrative staff in facilities, says members are starting to see some workload relief as provincial programs that focus on recruitment and retainment increase staffing numbers in remote and rural areas, said Scott De Long, vice-president of community health with the BCGEU and Labour Co-Chair of the BC Health Coalition.
Donate nowDonations by cheque can be made out to BC Health Coalition and mailed to BC Health Coalition 302-3102 Main Street Vancouver BC V5T 3G7. Or you can give monthly by cheque.
British
Columbia Health Coalition
3102 Main St, 302, Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish
Territories, BC V5T 3G7, Canada
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