THE PRIDE & JOY:

Doctor shortage 'a crisis': CMA: Government misses 100-day deadline for medicare reform (Mark Kennedy, March 09, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)

Canada's political leaders have failed to remedy the "No. 1 crisis" facing medicare -- a major shortage of doctors and nurses -- says the head of the country's medical profession.

The warning has come from Dr. Dana Hanson, president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), which challenged federal and provincial governments last fall to come up with a plan to rescue medicare within 100 days.

That deadline expired yesterday. Although the CMA said the Feb. 5 first ministers' accord and the recent federal budget provide a good start, they are limited by lack of action on the shortage of health-care providers.

"There just aren't enough hands on deck," said Hanson, adding that the problem will get worse as baby boomers who provide medical care retire.

The federal-provincial accord focuses on improving home care, expanding public coverage for a patient's "catastrophic" drug costs, reforming primary care, and buying more diagnostic equipment such as magnetic resonance imaging machines (MRIs).

But the doctors say such changes are pointless if there's no one to provide patient care.

We're fast headed towards a truly perverse situation where Canada will essentially transfer all its wealth to America in exchange for the medical care it is incapable of providing its own aged population. That's fine for us, but a catastrophe for them. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 9, 2003 10:13 AM