CRISIS
By Catherine Scott.
TORONTO, April 16 -- The fundamental crisis in Canadian medi-~ cine that drew world attention in 1962 to the Saskatchewan Medicare program and doctors! strike, has again hit the headlines, In Ontario, Canadats most heavily populated province, the shortage of hospital beds has reaohed emergency proportions, .
For the past decade, hospital corridors have been used for lack of space in. the wards ‘and patients have had to wait weeks for ordin~ ary operations, But recently an emergency-ease died because no bed could be found for him in Metropolitan Toronto, Yet the victim had fully paid-up hospital insurance collected by the provincial government,
Prepaid hospital insurance is compulsory for the vast majority of Ontario residents, but the government has failed to provide adequate hospital accommodation, The government makes very substantial grants to hospitals but they are governed by private boards, often representing some religious group, and always dependent to some degree on charitable donations, There is no over-all planning of. construction -- the responsibility rests with individuals in each community.
The shortage of beds is further aggravated by a shortage of nurses, Supposedly recipients of a three-year training program, they are in reality spending over half their time as hospital work-~ ers. The hospitals exploit these students to cut labour costs, Graduate nurses are underpaid, overworked and arbitrarily treated. As a result many graduate nurses change their occupation, The short~ age is so severe that some completed hospital buildings could not open for this reason,
In British Columbia where a prepaid medical insurance plan covers about 75 per cent of the population, the doctors are demand~ ing a raise of almost six per cent, . The trade unionists in the plan are fighting hard to force the doctors to negotiate, They objeot to
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the fee. increase when the average annua 1 income for doctors is’ between $17,000 and $18,000. _
And in Saskatchewan the fight of. 1962 over Medicare is not yet over. The privately controlled hospitals are still barring doctors, who: have co-operated with the government insurance plans, from hospital privileges, A Royal Commission has recommended that a govern~ ment board be set up to which rejected doctors°can appeal, The Saskatchewan Federation of Labor has urged the government to take over the hospitals. if necessary in order to provide pro-Mediocare doctors with hospital facilities,
Meanwhile the people of Saskatchewan are solving the problem in their own way. Because of the refusal of many doctors to deal with the government insurance scheme and because of the obvious advantages of group practice, community clinics have sprung up across the province, organized through co-operative associations.
So far there are fourteen clinics with ‘forty doctors partici- . ‘pating, all of whom bill the government directly, The clinics ‘pro~ “vide improved facilities, group consultation and give the patient, through the co-operative, some say in the medical service provided,
“A bright note last week was the cable.sent to the Belgian ‘government by a dozen Saskatchewan: dostors offering their servioes to the Belgian people, who were victimized by: the doctors!: ‘strike there.
CORRECTION
In last week!s World Outlook in T.J,Peters! London Letter, " on page 10 the sentence inside the parentheses in the second paragraph from the top should read: "However, they forced the government to concede labor representation on the 'tindependent tribunaist which could help them lay the case for their demands before the’ pub-= lic. . .,° ete,
Directeur-Gérant.: Pierre FRANK. ' . 1téditeur),.