PRESS RELEASE
Canadian Health Coalition
Canadian Association of Radiologists
For Immediate Release
September 25, 2002
Public Health Care:
Going Out of Business Sale ?
OTTAWA - The Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR) and the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) say the federal Health Minister is abdicating her duty to protect the national health care system from radical privatization experiments across the country. Current plans in Alberta, Nova Scotia and Ontario to hand over diagnostic and surgical services to the corporate sector raises disturbing questions about patient safety, access to medically necessary services, ethics, liability, and threats from international trade laws. An analysis of the situation done by the CAR and the CHC, illustrates that the five principles of the Canada Health Act - the foundation of Medicare - are being violated with impunity.
Dr Ian Hammond, President of the Canadian Association of Radiologists, explained that his association is concerned about safety and liability issues related to non-physician owned clinics. "The responsibility we as physicians have to ourselves and our patients is to maintain the ability to do what is medically correct, not what suits the bottom line of the business person", he said. In a recent meeting the Canadian Medical Protective Association, the group that insures physicians in Canada, expressed concerns with regard to physicians working in non-traditional settings. "The safety and liability issues should be enough for the Minister to stop and analyse further the consequences of such changes to the healthcare system", Dr. Hammond added.
Also in an effort to increase profitability, investor owned clinics are using slick marketing techniques to offer CT and MRI screening scans without medical referral. Normand Laberge CEO of the Association indicated that radiology standards state that no radiological examination should be performed without proper medical referral. "The delivery of medical services that are not proven to be medically indicated and/or without proper medical referral is unethical and needs to be regulated.”
The Association considers whole Body CT and MRI scans to be unjustified and inconclusive exposing patients needlessly to potentially harmful radiation and magnetic field. Furthermore, the false positive findings that will be produced, will require additional investigations at the public expense. Mr. Laberge said that: "The expansion of investor owned MRI and CT clinics will drain away scarce professional resources from the public system and thereby negatively affect timely access to these services.”
Shirley Douglas, daughter of Tommy Douglas, a founding father of the Canadian health care system, indicated that investor owned clinics allow people to jump the queue. “We are seeing the selling off of the public health care system piece by piece. There isn’t a scrap of evidence that handing over health care services to investor-owned enterprises will save money or deliver better care. The overwhelming body of evidence in fact proves that investor-owned health care delivery is more dangerous, expensive, inefficient and inequitable. Minister McLellan has a statutory duty to defend the five principles of the Canada Health Act. If she has no intention of doing so, she must resign,” said Ms. Douglas.
The privatization of health care services, however incremental, also increases the exposure of the Canadian health care system to trade complaints and challenges under NAFTA and the WTO. According to Steven Shrybman, an attorney of Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell, “experiments with private, for-profit health care corporations may be irreversible under the provisions of NAFTA and WTO. Any introduction of foreign interests into the Canadian health care system increases Canada's exposure to foreign investor claims under NAFTA. The greater the extent of those foreign investments, the greater the risk,” said Shrybman.
The CAR and CHC demand that the Federal Health Minister call an immediate halt to all legislative and regulatory changes involving investor-owned health care delivery until the Romanow Report has been tabled with the Prime Minister and a First Ministers’ Conference has resolved the issue. “Is Anne McLellan presiding over a going out of business sale or is she prepared to defend the values of Medicare from commercial corruption?”, asked Dr. Hammond.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Mr. Normand Laberge
Canadian Association of Radiologists
Tel: 514-738-3111
Cellular: 514-772-3111
Michael McBane
Canadian Health Coalition
Tel: 613-521-3400 ext. 308
Cellular: (613) 277-6295