Despite the pride Canadians take in our public health care system, the reality is we’re not all created equal in terms of our inherent health, of how we are motivated or able to care for ourselves or in access to health care when we need help.
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/McInnes+wealth+health+care+chasm+between+rich+poor+widening/7084985/story.html#ixzz23VI2PbgL
McInnes: wealth, health care chasm between rich, poor widening
By Craig McInnes, Vancouver SunAugust 13, 2012 10:00 PM
The role that relative wealth plays in health has been pushed into the spotlight, however, by the CMA’s new president, Dr. Anna Reid, a Yellowknife emergency care physician who cut her teeth in British Columbia where she sparred with the Liberal government over the management and funding of health care. Photograph by: Patrick Kane , Postmedia News
The news out of the Canadian Medical Association annual meeting in Yellowknife on Monday was no surprise to anyone who follows health issues.
We’ve known for a long time that rich people are healthier than the poor, just as we’ve known about the pieces that make up a healthier lifestyle and a longer life that go along with wealth.
The role that relative wealth plays in health has been pushed into the spotlight, however, by the CMA’s new president, Dr. Anna Reid, a Yellowknife emergency care physician who cut her teeth in British Columbia where she sparred with the Liberal government over the management and funding of health care.
Reid has a bigger stage now, but the issues haven’t changed. In a recent interview with Postmedia News, she talked about the “cracks and chasms” in health care coverage across the country and the need to focus on equity.
In the Canadian debate, equity usually refers to access, to being able to get care where and when you need it without long waits.
But in terms of staying healthy, which is my preferred option and the only strategy that is certain to cut health care costs, equity means much more.
Despite the pride Canadians take in our public health care system, the reality is we’re not all created equal in terms of our inherent health, of how we are motivated or able to care for ourselves or in access to health care when we need help.
The latest “it’s better to be rich” connection to health came from the CMA’s 12th annual National Report Card on Health Care. It’s based on a telephone survey by Ipsos Reid that measured personal perceptions of health and health care.
What appears to have changed from earlier surveys is that the gap between the rich and not-so-rich has grown. People with higher incomes — defined as $60,000 a year or more — were even more likely than before to report better health and healthier habits than those with incomes of $30,000 a year or less.
Lower income Canadians were a lot more likely to say the economic downturn has affected their health. Almost half blamed the listless economy for their declining health compared to about one-fifth of those with higher incomes.
Wealthier Canadians were less likely to say they or their children were overweight, were less likely to smoke, were less likely to have sought medical care in the past month and more likely to have a family doctor. They were also much less likely to stop or to delay taking drugs prescribed by their doctors.
Reid was one of those family doctors, specializing first in rural medicine. She completed a year of her residency in the small coastal community of Bella Coola. After a few years as a locum, she set up in Nelson.
After returning to Vancouver for specialized training, she became an emergency and intensive care physician at Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson.
In 2003, in a public dispute with the Interior Health Authority created by the Liberal government, Reid resigned as chief of medical staff from the hospital, which was losing facilities as part of a regionalization strategy. In her widely circulated resignation letter, she warned that lives were being put at risk.
“Nobody has died because of it yet, but I think it’s going to happen,” Reid said in an interview at the time.
“I think someone will eventually.”
In 2008, she took a position at the Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife, where the emergency room frequently reflects the social issues that result in the lower life expectancy in the Northwest Territories relative to the rest of Canada.
The N.W.T. is similar in that way to northern British Columbia, which also has a large aboriginal population, a life expectancy significantly lower than the provincial average and a higher incidence of lifestyle-related health problems.
“But I’d like to stress that it’s not just a northern and aboriginal issue, health equity,” Reid said in an interview in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
“I’ve worked in both urban and rural remote areas around the country and it’s an issue that crosses all those areas, all the provinces, all the territories. Every family doctor comes face to face with these issues every day.” |
