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Medicare in Crises - A Submission on Ontario's Health Care System

Publisher:  Ontario Federation of Labour and Others, CLC, Don Mills, Canada
Year Published:  1979  
Pages:  22pp  
Resource Type:  Article

Abstract:  Medicare in Crises is a submission to the Ontario Provincial government. The Ontario Federation of Labor, with the support of teachers, nurses, senior citizens groups and the Jesuit Center for Social Faith and Justice, prepared this submission "to express profound concern over the erosion of public health care" in Ontario.

The authors analyze the present health care system in Ontario under the broad categories of Physician Services, Hospital Services and future directions. The analysis includes some discussion of the opting out crisis, whereby physicians are leaving the provincial medicare plan. The major reason given for the increase in those who opt out is economic. Both the deregulation of salaries by the government, and the break-down in negotiations for a new fee scale are cited as the immediate causes. The authors propose a number of ways that physicians may be paid for their services, such as global budgeting which is based on an integrated health care system.

The analysis of hospital services looks closely at the government's bed/population formulation for bed allocation. Bed allocation, the authors argue, should be sensitive to the needs of the community which a hospital serves, not politics and economics.

Throughout the submission, the authors argue that the present health care system does not care for the whole person. We should begin to think of "Socio-health" services and so they propose a Community Support Center (CSC). A CSC will offer both health and social services. More than a clinic, a CSC will allow for direct community involvement in determining the socio-health goals and objectives and the implementation and ongoing review of socio-health plans. Thus, a CSC operates on the basis of the needs of the community to whom health care must be given, and offers total socio-health care.

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