On October 19, 2006 The National Citizens Coalition and Albertans For Responsible Government held a very special luncheon with guest speaker Dr. Albert Schumacher.
Here are the highlights from the event.
Biography
Dr. Albert Schumacher graduated from University of Western Ontario Medical School 1982. Soon after he started family practice in his home town of Windsor, Ontario
Dr. Schumacher spent 13 years in various elected positions at the Ontario Medical Association culminating in being elected President of the OMA for 2000-2001. Some of the highlights included defeating draconian privacy legislation and was instrumental in moving the Ontario Tobacco Advocacy Strategy Forward.
In 2004 he was elected President of the Canadian Medical association and during his time there he was tireless in keeping pressure on government to address the dire shortage of doctors and long waiting lists for patients. Albert also called on governments to expand medical schools capacity to deal with the significant shortage of doctors.
Why our health care system is in trouble today?
We have over promised and under delivered with respect to quality of health care and wait times.
We have too few doctors in the system and we make it very difficult for immigrant doctors with solid credentials to qualify to become a practicing doctor in Canada
In the early 1990’s various provincial governments cut the number of medical school positions because they thought there would be a surplus of doctors. We are still paying for that decision today. The number of medical school positions in 1978-1979 was 1,829 in Canada and that dropped to 1,604 in 1992 even though it was apparent to some that we would be facing a doctor shortage in the later part of the 1990’s
Some statistics of interest.
- 10% of Canadians today have no access to a family doctor.
- Average wait time for a CAT Scan is 72 days
- Average wait time for an MRI is 72 days
- In the United States people can get CAT Scans done in 3 days and MRI done in less than a week. Canadian’s living close to the US border can get a CAT Scan done for a cost of around $500.
- All of this wait time increases the risk of long term disability and after 6-8 weeks of waiting this risk increases by 1% a day which in turn places more stress on the health care system.
- Over $1 billion of health care services are provided a year for Canadians going to the United States to get procedures completed when the wait times became too long. This work is being done at renowned clinics like Henry Ford in Detroit, Roswell Park in Buffalo and the Cleveland Clinic.
Why have Doctors left the system and moved elsewhere?
- Doctors are always on call with not enough backup support- burnout becomes a problem
- There is a lack of operating room time available due to the shortage of nurses and support staff( due to the government trying to contain costs)
- What needs to be done?
- Government of Canada should establish a goal of self sufficiency of health care resources as a national health care goal.
- For every 5 doctors practicing in Canada, there are 6 doctors in Western Europe and we are only training 4 to replace the 5 doctors we have, which is only a 80% self sufficiency rate which must change.
- For every doctor we are short, we are short 5 nurses.
- Increase the number of resident positions
- Make Canada self sufficient in the purchase of medical equipment and encourage Canadian companies to manufacture it. Currently the only product in an operating room that is Canadian made are the tongue depressors.
- Make a concerted effort to graduate doctors earlier so by the age of 27 they are fully qualified to work as a doctor. Currently that age is closer to 31.
- Develop a plan to deal with the crippling level of debt that most doctors have when they have completed their medical studies.
- Develop a better plan for the approval of drugs that have been sent to government agencies for approval. Many drugs have been developed by biotech firms in Canada but it takes far too long for the government to approve the clinical testing of these drugs.50 drugs were submitted last year for approval and none were approved.
- Encourage medical student graduates to stay in the province where they graduated from medical school as that helps in doctor retention down the road.
Click here to view the Dr. Schumacher Luncheon Photo Gallery
