Sep. 29, 2010 - Issue #780 : Dave Stone
Issues
They consulted, but did they listen?
Report on Alberta's health care system misses Albertans concerns
Earlier this month, MLA Fred Horne and his Members' Advisory Committee on Health (MACH) released a new report on Alberta’s health care system. The report, which took four months and over $1 million to prepare, was based on community consultations held around the province last spring on the question of what should be contained in a proposed Alberta Health Act.
The report was released in two parts, and although the first part of the report was the one containing the actual recommendations from the committee, I chose to start by reading part two, which provided a summary of what the committee heard from Albertans during the process.
I did this because it's not uncommon for this government to fudge what they hear during consultations in order to justify doing what they wanted to in the first place, and I wanted to see if this report would be any different. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to see a fairly honest and straight-forward presentation of what the committee heard. The consultation included over 1500 participants in workshops around the province, input from 85 written submissions and close to 1500 completed Internet surveys.
When the committee asked Albertans what wasn't working in the system, the results were fairly unequivocal. Albertans are concerned about their health system. Some of the key issues raised in the report include concerns about the growing list of services not being covered by Alberta Health Services, the tremendous difficulty Albertans face in finding family physicians, problems with the timeliness of service, and a lack of assisted living and long-term care spaces in communities around the province.
At the same time, the report highlights the fact that Albertans want to be consulted and genuinely listened to about the direction of the system, and that they don't support a complete overhaul of the province's existing health legislation.
The contents of part two of the report, combined with the title of the report, "Putting People First," made me hopeful about what would be in part one in terms of recommendations and proposed changes to the system. Here was a committee, I thought, that actually heard Albertans and their call for action, was prepared to acknowledge that the system had not been putting peoples' health care needs first, and which would surely recommend positive steps and actions for moving the health system forward.
I should have known better. Despite having heard that Albertans wanted action to fix problems and didn't feel new legislation was necessary, the committee's 15 recommendations focus almost entirely on legislation and principles and completely ignore any type of concrete action or change.
Some of the recommendations by the committee include the creation of an Alberta Health Act, the drafting of Alberta health care principles, the creation of a health care charter, the establishment a health care advocate, and more open, timely and genuine consultation on any future changes to the system. The recommendations also make it clear that the long-term goal of government should be the full replacement of all existing legislation with the new health act and charter.
Of course, none of these fancy documents and statements of principle will make one lick of difference to accessibility, timeliness of care, people's ability to find a family doctor, or to families looking for affordable long-term care. There is a complete disconnect from what the committee heard to what they are recommending.
The Parkland Institute, on the other hand, did publish a report last week that responds directly to what Albertans have said they want. The Parkland report, entitled "Access, Quality and Affordability: Real Health Care Change for Albertans," recommends six concrete actions the government can take to help meet the most immediate challenges facing the system and actually address the stated needs of Albertans. These include such things as limiting the role of for-profit involvement, working with other provinces to develop a national pharmacare program, invest in prevention and the social determinants of health, and making decisions about what is covered much more open and transparent.
According to Parkland, taking these actions today would, at most, require only very minor tweaks to the existing legislation, not a complete overhaul or amalgamation. In fact, says the Parkland Report, replacing the existing legislation would be dangerous in that it would open up the system to even greater privatization and eliminate some of the protections and standards that exist today in areas like seniors care.
In the end, despite its title, Fred Horne's report is just one more example of how disconnected this government and its policies are from the needs, wishes and values of the Albertans it claims to represent. Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky has said he will consider the report's recommendations and announce his plan of action in mid-October. What that plan of action will include is anybody's guess, but past experience suggests that it will do nothing to put people first. V
Ricardo Acuña is the Executive Director for the Parkland Institute, a non-partisan public policy research institute housed at the University of Alberta.
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