Ethiopian Review

SASKATOON (NEWS1130) – The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says the health-care system is imploding and doctors have to develop a plan to cure it. Dr. Anne Doig says the care being provided to patients right now is less than optimal. She says doctors, who are gathered in Saskatoon for their annual meeting, recognize that changes must be made.

However, Wendy Fucile with the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario says the CMA has to listen to Canadians. “There are national polls that support the notion of publicly funded health care, commonly what we call Medicare, being a very core value for many Canadians. It is in part one of those key elements that differentiates our country and our ethics from some others.”

The pitch for change starts Sunday with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the Association’s outgoing president. He has called for a patient-centred system and that could mean a role for private health care delivery within the public system.

Meanwhile Dr. Robert Ouellette, the outgoing president of the CMA, says he’s worried about where we’re headed. The Montreal radiologist says the system could implode if we don’t make changes.

Ouellette says wait times are the big worry to both patients and those in the medical communities — doctors, nurses and therapists. “It is possible to have a universal system without significant wait times. This is the goal we want to achieve in the transformation we want to implement.”

He says any talk of moving away from a 100 per cent universal system gets some people thinking we’re on our way to a US system. However, he says we must forget the rhetoric and move on so we can make the necessary changes.

By Dean Recksiedler | news1130