More physicians might reduce extra billing
Re: “Medical commission files injunction against Telus Health patient fee,” Dec. 2.
Private care, extra billing or any form of patient-visit charge or user fee may appear to be helping by taking the load off the public health-care system, but once entrenched it creates a two-tier system and an illusion that the health-care system is functioning well.
In reality, such intrusions by private interests eventually restrict access to those who have less of a voice in the society. Those who have less of a voice in a society are also the people who have more of the “need” for health-care services because of their personal, social and economic circumstances. A quick glance south of the border will attest to this.
The medical profession is one of the noblest professions in the world; the care, compassion and dedication with which most physicians interact with patients is remarkable.
We hear about Doctors without Borders who go to war zones, attend to natural disasters and epidemics around the world. We recently learned about B.C.’s top burns specialist from Vancouver General who spent two weeks in Ukraine volunteering and caring for those injured in the Russian invasion. All these medical professionals and the medical profession, in general, deserve our collective applause and admiration.
However, it is unfortunate that in the same medical profession, we have a breed of physicians, albeit small, who are exploiting the present health crisis and asking patients to pay extra for the services beyond the payment thresholds on which the majority of physicians have agreed to work.
Admittedly, in the past these thresholds have been inadequate and did not fairly compensate physicians, but the new agreement with Doctors of B.C. is an unprecedented and a welcome shift.
With this shift, continuing to argue to extra-bill patients is more to do with greed rather than the desire to serve patients’ need. Hopefully as the new agreement settles in and doors open up to welcome internationally trained physicians, such intrusions by private interests will dissipate and British Columbians will continue to enjoy the care and treatment within the publicly funded health care system as per the principles of the Canada Health Act.
Paramjit S. Rana
Victoria
Ostrich governance and bad health care
Re: “No magic solution to health-care woes,” letter, Dec. 5.
The comment seems as though it appeals to reasonable logic, but it does not.
People in positions of responsibility, be they in government or health care, have known for at least 40 years that our health-care system would be overwhelmed by the boomers advancing in age. And they did nothing.
As lately as five years ago, you could not create any new long-term beds without getting rid of the same number, so no net gain. This, even though more beds would clearly be needed. So this “logic” was that more people would fit in the same number of beds.
Fast forward to COVID. Dr. Bonnie Henry’s (and the government’s) “logic” from the beginning was never “we don’t want you to get sick and die”; it was “we don’t want you to overwhelm the capacity of the health-care system.”
Remember? The whole “flattening the curve” thing. And they did nothing to increase capacity then, either.
Now, we are yet again in the situation in our vaunted health-care system that necessary surgeries are being postponed because the health-care system is again overwhelmed by “higher than expected” need.
Someone, somewhere, in the past 40 years might have focused on increasing capacity, but they did nothing. And here we are again.
If we had built too many long-term beds initially, they could accommodate sub-acute care from the hospitals, freeing up hospital beds and, possibly, surgeries. But now we have long-term patients taking up hospital beds because there is no place for them to go.
Truly ostrich governance.
Geoffrey Robards
Oak Bay
Our mail certainly gets to travel
When “penny postage” was introduced in Britain in 1840, a “stamp” received by a sender and applied to a letter, represented a receipt for the “tax” paid to deliver a piece of mail. Now we are blessed with paying a tax on the tax we’ve just paid.
The reason for a “fuel surcharge” as I see it, is to cover the cost of an inefficient method of mail delivery.
If I have a post office box in Saanichton, and wish to mail an item to a person who rents the box next to mine, in “days of yore” a post office employee would cancel the stamp on it and place the item in the receiver’s box. The mail would travel about six or eight feet and the process would take 20 or so seconds.
In the same situation now, the piece of mail, once accepted at my post office, is placed in a large sack, picked up by a mail van and transported to Glanford Avenue in Saanich.
The sack is then loaded on another truck and driven back out the Saanich Peninsula to the airport (on the way, passing the mail’s eventual destination) and loaded onto a plane.
Once on the mainland, the sack is loaded onto another mail truck and driven to the Richmond sorting centre. Once all the lovely, expensive post office equipment has sorted the mail, it’s then sacked, loaded onto another mail truck and driven back to the airport.
When the sack is back on the Island, it’s loaded onto another mail truck and driven back to Glanford. The mail is then sorted into delivery routes and my piece of mail is loaded onto its appropriate mail truck. The item is then driven back out to Saanichton and placed into its appropriate mail box.
So, now the mail delivery process involves a minimum of six mail trucks, two plane rides and the use of three postal facilities. Now you know why there’s a fuel surcharge.
Michael Rice
North Saanich
School liaison officers save lives
It saddened me to read human rights commissioner Kamari Govender’s recommendations regarding school liaison officers. Her comments left me wondering if she has ever spent any time in a school where school liaison officers work as part of a collaborative team with other school personnel.
As the principal of an alternative school, I worked with students whose challenges included sexual abuse, drug addiction, homelessness and violence. Many of these students had experienced interactions with the police, or the criminal justice system that was less than positive.
Besides creating a positive rapport with students on an ongoing basis, liaison officers are an integral part of a school-based team that includes school counsellors, the principal or vice-principal, a school psychologist, the students’ teachers and community-based outreach workers.
The purpose of a school-based team approach is to identify solutions and opportunities that enable a student to discover success with their education and life circumstances.
I read that 1,827 people have died in the first 10 months of this year in B.C. from illicit drug use — 5.8 deaths per day. Some of these deaths are young people of school age. My experience is that the intervention of a school-based team saved the lives of some students who may have become statistics.
School liaison officers have access to valuable information and resources that other members of the school-based team do not. They provide a positive role model to young people whose only encounter with the police has been negative.
I am 100 per cent supportive of school-based liaison officers. I encourage any newly elected or long-term trustees to familiarize themselves with the school liaison officers in their district before this spring, when tough budget decisions need to be made.
Dave Betts
Assistant superintendent (retired)
Sooke school district
Amalgamation, please, provincial government
The Capital Regional District has 13 municipalities for a population of about 400,000-plus. Edmonton and Calgary each have one mayor and 12 and 14 councillors respectively — each city with a population of about 1.3 million.
If Premier David Eby wishes to show true vision and leadership in his first 100 days, he would direct his minister of municipal affairs to implement amalgamation of the CRD before the next provincial election.
David Buchwald
Victoria
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