Health care

Something missing from the H1N1 fight

Oct 2, 2009
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When the government announced its plans for dealing with H1N1 in schools on August 24th there was something missing. The government’s “pandemic response framework”, announced by the Ministers of Education and Healthy Living and sport deals with issues like transporting the sick, communications, roles of emergency response teams, school instruction and post-pandemic recovery plans. What… View Article

Poltergeists and P3s: They’re back

Sep 24, 2009
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In February, with the spectacular collapse of the $3 billion Port Mann Bridge public private partnership, many people thought P3s in British Columbia were a dead item.  They’re back. With the Fort St. John Hospital project the government’s privatization agency, Partnerships BC (PBC), has found a way to drastically reduce private investment in P3s while… View Article

A Framework for Enhancing Home Support in BC

May 4, 2009
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Home support is an important element of the broader home and community care system, which unfortunately tends to get overlooked in many health care discussions. Home support serves an important dual purpose: it improves the quality of life of vulnerable citizens by allowing them to continue living independently in their own homes and it enables… View Article

Docs call for more attention to addiction

Apr 8, 2009
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The BC Medical Association released an important report at the end of March. The Vancouver Sun gave it good coverage, but overall it didn’t get the attention it deserved. Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in BC raises a lot of issues worth talking about in an election. The report estimates there are 400,000 British Columbians… View Article

Contracting Out: Enough to make you sick

Mar 21, 2009
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There is now an accumulation of evidence, both international and domestic, that contracting out is good — but only if you happen to own shares in MDS, Sodexho, LifeLabs, Compass, Aramark or any number of other piggybackers. Unfortunately, if you are merely a patient, taxpayer and/or hospital worker you are probably getting sicker, paying more… View Article

The Lawsuit

Mar 4, 2009
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The Lawsuit A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Brian Day and his followers had launched a lawsuit against the province, alleging that, “in contravention of the value of individual choice,” the Medicare Protection Act restricts or prohibits patients from “accessing the private health care of their choice”. Day & Co. brazenly admit in… View Article

The Budget: A Determinant of Health

Feb 19, 2009
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I know this budget is supposed to be good news for health, but I want to argue here that the exact opposite is true. We’ve had a lot of budgets like this in B.C., so this one is in keeping with its right wing predecessors. During the 1980s, for example, the never-ending Social Credit government… View Article