Health committee  The so-called quality agenda in health care is something that all countries have heard of, and some are actually moving on. I was in the U.K. last week, and Scotland I think is considerably ahead of most jurisdictions in Canada in appreciating that we need to move to make our s

Health committee  Can I just quickly give a response to that?

Health committee  Of course, one way of looking at this is when we have an expensive drug prescribed when less expensive drugs are available, or when quite often drugs are prescribed when they should not be prescribed and when other non-pharmacological therapies—by, for example, chiropractors, phy

Health committee  Yes, Madam Chair.

Health committee  I think that Marc-André has characterized it well. Clearly, some organization, I would argue, at a national level, the federal level, should keep track of the drugs that Canadians are getting and properly link those to side effects that they're experiencing, because both marketin

Health committee  As have been outlined, I think there are several different levels that are needed. The first is that there needs to be some sort of national pharmacare program to deal with the reality that millions of Canadians cannot really afford the medications they're taking, or need to take

Health committee  I'll jump in quickly. I'm very concerned about the accord. It was weak when it was drafted in actually giving the federal government any control over the $41 billion it planned to transfer to the provinces over 10 years. But even when there were pledges, as there were for a nati

Health committee  Okay. Most people who study this part of our system would say that most waits for family doctors in most parts of this country—and also most waits for specialists and ambulatory care—are not necessarily because of a lack of resources or the lack of a private system. These waits

Health committee  Can I have 30 seconds more?

Health committee  Okay. Finally, what can the federal government do? The federal government's already involved with health care in its responsibility for aboriginal health and public health. The minimum it could do would be to provide some structured support for the quality improvement activities

Health committee  I'd be happy if somebody could send it to me. Thank you.

Health committee  I can.

Health committee  I'm not as tall as I may sound.

Health committee  Well, thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be asked to address the committee. I'm going to be addressing it from a particular perspective, as a physician who did practise clinical medicine for about 20 years all told, but not for most of the last 15 years. Now I mainly do co

Health committee  Yes, and I will close with what the federal government can do, which I think is in the way of technology, important technology. First of all, I'll talk about the key arguments around our health care system these days. I think the way technology veers into it is that it will sav