Health Care Fixes

Health Care is always a popular topic during election time. Why not? It’s an easy whipping boy. Every Ontarian has a horror story or two about the provincial health care system. In 2018 the traditional party leaders are scoring cheap political points by criticizing the growing issues in Ontario medicine. But as usual these Toronto-centric politicians are late off the mark.

Northern Ontario has been experiencing and, to a modest extent, overcoming these exact same problems for years. Did these parties care then? No, not when it was just us rural voters suffering. Now that it’s their prized urban constituents experiencing difficulties, suddenly the province's Health Care system is in “crisis”!

Our region has always been the canary in the coal mine. (Miners once carried caged birds into the tunnels with them. If dangerous gases collected in the mine, the canary would die prompting the workers to flee the tunnels immediately.) Problems in public health often appear here first. You'd think that would mean we'd see the solutions first too…but no.

In health care, like in most areas, the North gets left behind. The catastrophic cuts imposed by Mike Harris’ PCs have combined with years of Liberal mismanagement to give us the worst of both worlds.

Almost every health-related metric is worse up here: Life-expectancy; Wait times; Access to equipment; Occurrence rates of many diseases; Obesity; Opiod addictions; ALC bed shortages; Suicide rates…and the province's Band-Aid solutions aren’t cutting it.

Sure, things have improved…some. The Northern Ontario School of Medicine has begun filling the doctor shortage. Nurse-practitioner clinics have increased Northerners access to health care. But we're still far behind our southern neighbours. Northerners wish we had so-called “hallway medicine”…our hospitals have been reduced to bathroom and closet medicine!

There are fixes available but they aren't as glamorous as cutting ribbons and handing out giant novelty cheques. Preventative medicine, for instance, is both a cost effective investment and a practical solution.

Our opponents excel at posing for photo-ops. The NOP would rather work behind the scenes. Teaming with health professionals and the public we'd seek to lower obesity rates, encourage Ontarian’s to adopt a healthier diet, and guide citizens in making better lifestyle choices. All of which will reap great long-term benefits.

We look around the world and see proactive governments punishing unhealthy behaviour with taxes on sugary drinks and the like. The NOP knows that people prefer the carrot to the stick. And would direct our efforts toward tax rebates for healthy habits, provide subsidies towards the growing, harvesting, and purchasing of Ontario-grown fruits and vegetables, and grant rebates for sports memberships—not just for children either. Adults and seniors benefit from active lifestyles too.

So much more could be done to keep Ontarian's healthy. Queen’s Park should be doing everything in its power to encourage our citizens—incentivizing change would be a smart start.

Multi-million sports complexes aren’t needed. Neither are dedicated bicycle paths or Olympic-sized swimming pools. All the Ontario government needs is political will and vision. Just as exercise regimes have changed since the days of Charles Atlas, it’s time for politicians to modernize their attitudes toward public health. And it should start up here in the North. Give the province's canary a chance to prove itself. Debuting these incentives in Northern Ontario would give us hard numbers as to their effectiveness and maybe help improve the health of Northerners to something comparable with the rest of the province.

Billions in new spending might get the headlines but real change comes behind the scenes. Ontarian’s need more than flashy bandages. Preventative medicine has been treated like Northern Ontario and ignored for too long. Let's work to change that.

If you have suggestions for how to improve the province's health care please let us know. We want your help. We need your help. Remember, "Together we stand!" Together we can help each other and all of Ontario.

Mat