Health Policy in Canada
This is a question answer paper, which focusses on the health sector in Canada and the health policy that the government of Canada has put in place. This paper will identify a problem that the government of Canada has not yet identified in the health sector and why it has not been identified. The paper will also look at the issue of affordability crises together with the government’s role in the health care system and its moves in the recent past.
A health problem which the government of Canada has not identified is the problem of immunization. In Canada, many children skip the process of getting immunized because the government has left that choice to their parents. Some parents chose that their children would rather not be immunized in Canada and this poses a wide health threat for the children’s future. While the government has in all provinces ensured that health facilities offer vaccination for children with a vaccination program in the whole country, there are those who do not benefit from this. The government has ensured that there are vaccinations for polio and tetanus just like there are all over the world, and also vaccines for influenza B, mumps, pertussis, measles and rubella but has not made it a must for every child to get immunized. This is the problem, the loop hole lies here, the government has not made it illegal for parents to deny their children the right to get immunized.
Some parents say that they do not have any confidence with the health authorities in Canada, and for this reason they deny their children the need to be immunized against these diseases that could cost them life if any of them was attacked or got ill form them. This is comments and reactions from that parent who can afford alternative medication for their children rather than have them immunized in the public health system. It is also as a result of parents whose children have negative side effects of the immunization.
The government may be unaware of this problem due to its failure in the follow up of the children born in Canada. Once a child is born in Canada the government has not put in place a system to follow up on the health of the child until a certain age, say 16 years when at least the government can leave the child to the parents.
To attract the attention of the government, the health professionals in Canada should engage the government in talks to ensure that the government is aware is of the situation. Holding talks with the government, a law can be formulated to ensure that the vaccination of children is made compulsory.
The affordability crisis in the Canadian health system in the early 1990`s, who was to blame? What was it all about? In the early 1990s there was an affordability crisis in the health system of Canada, many people blamed the government for this crisis, but really who was to blame? Before the early 1990s, every Canadian citizen believed that it was their right to receive and enjoy health care without having to be charged a penny, but this period for them seemed like the monopolization of the medical services, from a long era of free medical services to a turn around. The system seemed like a system which reduced the accessibility of health care system. The Canadian government withheld the funds from the medical care of the provinces and no funds were moved to the hospitals, this seemed to facilitate privatization of medical health services in Canada and this is where the problem began. With the government having stopped all funding, the medical services became more expensive for the people of Canada. This went from a normal situation where the citizens would access free medical care to a situation where they were charged for the same health services.
The Canadian health system received declining confidence from the service receivers; however the system is not to be blamed for the affordability crises in the health sector of Canada. This is because the health care system in Canada had no ability to make the health care system privatize. The role of privatizing the health care system belonged to the law makers. It is the government and policy makers who should be blamed for the affordability crises in the early 90s in Canada since they were the same people who cut off fund from the health care system. When funds were cut from the health care system, it turns into a monopoly which was not yet privatized. The role of privatization belonged to the government; only the government could have solved the affordability crises in the health care system of Canada. The government could have been able to make a choice between two possibilities, either returning the fund to the health care system so that the services could continue being affordable or by making a law which privatized the health care system. The health care system of Canada is not to be blamed for the affordability crises for these reasons.
The government did not react to critics who criticized it for closing beds and withdrawing money from the Canadian health system, even when the critics claimed that this move by the government was putting the lives of other people in jeopardy, the government still did not do anything. The government failed to react to this because it knew that it had no resources that it could put to please the critics. The government’s solution was to withdraw the money form the Canadian health system because it was in a financial crisis.
The government well understood its financial crises and its financial position, and it perceived that giving free medical care was a luxury which it would no longer be able to cater for. The government decided to remain silent to the critics and move on with its strategy of monopolizing the health care.
This is the Canadian health system in the early 1990s; those were the crises at the time in the health care sector. The government was evading financial crises and this was why it changed the health care system in Canada.
References
McIntosh, T. A., Forest, P., & Marchildon, G. P. (2004). The governance of health care in Canada. Toronto [Ont.: University of Toronto Press.
Neuschler, E. (1990). Canadian health care: the implications of public health insurance. Washington, D.C. (1025 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington D.C.): Health Insurance Association.
Bennett, A., & Adams, O. (1993). Looking north for health: what we can learn from Canada’s health care system. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
