Members of the Central Alberta Council on Aging attended the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health (MACH) consultation on Thursday at the Capri Conference Centre in Red Deer. It was the last of a series of 29 meetings across the province on the proposed new Alberta Health Act. The attendance at previous meetings was from 25 to 40 people. The Red Deer meeting attendance was over 135. The Central Alberta Council on Aging made a submission to the proposed Alberta Health Act on July 7 and copies were handed out by council members. Here is the Central Alberta Council on Aging’s submission:
From our review of A Foundation for Alberta’s Health System, we do not find a convincing rationale for why Alberta needs a new legislative framework, and certainly not a sound basis for that new framework, if it were needed.
Principles
We believe that the principles that form the basis of the Canada Health Act (CHA) are the very same principles that define us as Canadians.
• All Alberta seniors have a right to age with dignity, respect and freedom from physical, mental or financial harm.
• We are not opposed to legislation that is based on principles provided that they are clear and meaningful principles.
• A meaningful principle might be one that extended the scope of insured services under the CHA to cover all “medically necessary “services, as determined by a doctor, regardless of the venue in which the service is delivered.
• The basic purpose of our health-care system is to provide citizens with necessary medical services, regardless of age, on the basis of need, not ability to pay.
• Because seniors have been a principal target in the Alberta government’s efforts to curtail its health-care spending, we would want to follow that up with a principal that says that both the medical and personal nursing care required by seniors who are cognitively impaired, chronically ill or profoundly frail is a medically necessary service that should be fully insured.
• Sustainability is not only a financial consideration but must also include social benefits.
• Under the Canadian Constitution, health care is under the jurisdiction of the provinces; the accountability is through the minister and the legislature and must not be abrogated.
Delivery systems
Members of CACA belong to the last generation of Albertans with first-hand experience of paying out-of-pocket for all their health care. Although there is no doubt that changes in the current health-care system are needed, CACA would oppose any change that treats health care as a commodity to be bought and sold on the so-called “free market.”
• While we have no concern with non-profit, voluntary organizations delivering health care, we suggest the for-profit delivery is inconsistent with the ‘public administration’ principle of the CHA. For-profit agencies and corporations will inevitably protect its proprietary information making public oversight and administration impossible.
• Alberta has been operating its public health-care delivery systems and we do not support replacing it by a more expensive delivery system.
• Inviting private, for-profit corporations to deliver publicly funded health care is a recipe for an endless string of defaults, bankruptcies and litigation, i.e. Health Resources Group and Masterpiece.
• We support national and provincial pharmacare as a means of controlling costs.
Patient Charter
We do not support a patient charter.
• By definition, a charter takes precedence over laws and is enforceable in the courts. We do not want to spend our health-care dollars in delays and litigation.
• The notion of patient responsibility and the consequences for irresponsible behaviour flies in the face of the CHA, which is a no-fault insurance plan. Healthy living and preventative practices should be promoted to all Albertans.
• Evolution of legislation has met the test of time and if adhered to will serve and protect Albertans.
Consultation
• Given the Alberta government’s history on consultation, it is going to have to work very hard to achieve the proposed AHA principle of “Fostering a culture of trust and respect.”
• Like past consultations, and the current process is no exception, the feeling is that the key decisions have already been made and the consultation is a public relations exercise. A local example is the change in long term care from public owned and operated to public funded, private for profit, without consultation of the community.
Conclusion
There must be stable funding for health care with increases built in for inflation and increases in population and technology.