Juno News - November 12, 2021
Fixing Canada's broken healthcare system
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
174.07112
Summary
Coming up, a deep dive into the Canadian healthcare system. How is it not serving patients, and more importantly, how can we make it better? In this episode, we talk to Dr. Sean Watley, author of When Politics Comes Before Patients, and Joanna Barron, Executive Director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and CEO of MedPoint, Alex Hannum.
Transcript
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, a deep dive into the Canadian healthcare system.
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How is it not serving patients, and more importantly, how can we make it better?
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Welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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Every Friday we do things a little bit differently.
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We take a big issue affecting us in society, and we try to bring in a panel of experts
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And today we're going to do a deep dive into healthcare,
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which is not exactly an underexplored topic, certainly not in the last year and a half,
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but it is one that oftentimes is scant on solutions.
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We have a very narrow view of healthcare discourse,
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and so many of the big changes, or even marginal changes,
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that a lot of people have proposed for the system
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just will not get addressed in the political realm
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for reasons that I'm sure we'll tackle in the next little while.
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all bringing very different expertise to the question of healthcare,
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and specifically healthcare reform in this country,
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which I think we can all agree is something that is very much needed.
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Alex Hannum is the president and CEO of MedPoint,
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which is a healthcare centre in my neck of the woods in London, Ontario,
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that does a lot of great work and has both public and private elements.
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Dr. Sean Watley, who is a family physician and author of the fantastic book
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also the former head of the Ontario Medical Association,
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and Joanna Barron, executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation,
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which has been doing a lot of work specifically with a case in BC
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because I know there is this case that's been taking up several years,
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Joanna, that is really getting to the heart of, I think,
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where a lot of people's frustrations with the healthcare system in Canada are right now,
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which is that we're told we have this universal government-guaranteed access
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but for a lot of people, that's just access to a waiting list.
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So that is the evidence that we let in the case,
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which I don't know how much background we should provide,
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It's brought by the Canadian Constitution Foundation
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which is a long-standing private surgical facility in Vancouver,
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access to healthcare is not access to a waiting list.
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And that the government cannot, at the same time,
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and at the same time, prevent those same patients
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and seeking treatment outside of the public system.
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How does MedPoint fit into the delivery system we have in Canada?
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Well, we were born out of just trying to make a better system.
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She really felt like there was no focus on prevention.
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right around the time that Don Kopman announced
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And quite honestly, I've actually spoken to Don since.
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We just felt like if we could focus on prevention
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we weren't, we were going to do executive healthcare,
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So the first couple of years were a little tight.
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Now, where do you fit in the public-private discussion?
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we offer a three-hour medical or a five-hour medical
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but they really expect a better overall experience
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It was get me through that OHIP system consistently,
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And what we really found was that we started to attract
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as at one time 28 physicians working out of MedPoint,
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starting with just one family doctor and growing.
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So we have added gynecology, cardiology, dermatology, gastro,
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and then, of course, everything just sort of escalated from there.
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that the system, the traditional public universal system,
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doesn't really allow for that focus on preventative healthcare?
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and then we're trying to deal with the issue they came with,
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the issue that they didn't tell the front staff about,
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plus all of the things that I'm supposed to be screening for.
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You have a 50% chance of a heart attack or stroke
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three hours for preventative health maintenance.
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You know, how many extra quality adjusted life years
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are we going to get out of this particular intervention?
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and how many extra tax dollars are you going to pay
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And so we're dealing with a type of organization,
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And so it's similar to education or peacekeeping.
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But trying to create an evidence-based argument
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We appreciate you taking it out of your schedule,
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And a lot of this must sound very familiar to you
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when these solutions are being offered by people
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is that physicians cannot build a public system