Madam Speaker, my colleagues will be dividing their time from now on.
It is with great sadness that I am here today to speak on the motion. It is with great sadness and anger that I listened to the response of the government to the most important thing in people's lives, their health.
The government continues to put forth the fantasy that medicare can continue in its current form. This is criminal, reprehensible and an outright lie. The reality is that medicare is like a ship with holes in it that is sinking with its captain, the government, saying all is well. Unfortunately when we look inside where the people are, the patients, we find that they are dying, suffering and in pain. That is exactly what is happening in health care in Canada today. It is a profound tragedy and should not occur in a country such as ours.
The provinces have found that demand is increasing. Costs are escalating with an aging population and more expensive technology. Also revenues are going down as was demonstrated in the last budget with an $8 billion decrease in transfer funding from the federal government.
Who is caught between a rock and a hard place? In reality it is the patients who are sick, who are unwell. When they go to hospital they discover that essential health care services cannot be provided in a reasonable amount of time.
The provinces are hamstrung by the current Canada Health Act. They are forced to engage in rationing. I will give some real life examples from across the country. In Victoria, B.C., where I live, 40 per cent of hip replacements for elderly people who are in severe pain take 13 months. The British Columbia Health Association is very concerned about the critical lack of access to essential services.
In Prince George a very interesting and sad thing happened. People going for surgery were given the option of receiving autologous blood transfusions, which allow people to have their own blood taken and purified for use in their next surgery. The cost charged to each patient was $150. The reason for that was the Red Cross and medicare system could not pay for it. They gave the patient the option of using their own blood in a safe fashion that would not subject them to HIV, hepatitis and a number of other diseases.
Two months after this came out the Ministry of Health said that it could not be done, that patients could not be charged for it. It prevented the Prince George Regional Hospital from doing so. Now patients have to get packed cells for blood transfusions at $500 a unit.
In Alberta it takes three weeks for emergent and urgent open heart surgery. The surgeons there say it is a miracle so far that nobody has died, but it is going to happen.
The Prince George hospital, because of the funding cutbacks that have been foisted upon the provincial government, is forced to cut back its operating room days by 12 days a year, knowing full well that it has hundreds of people waiting for urgent surgery.
The minister said that doctors were returning to Canada. I had a conversation with one of her close advisers the other day who said that it was the bad doctors who were leaving the country. He asked: "Isn't that so?" Half our neurosurgeons leave the country. Eighty per cent of orthopedic surgeons in some cities have left as well as 50 per cent of obstetricians and gynecologists.
Dr. Joel Cooper of the University of Toronto, a world famous cardio-thoracic surgeon, left. Dr. Munro from the Hospital for Sick Children left. These world famous individuals left the country not because they wanted more money but because, in their words, they could not practise the way they were supposed to and were sick and tired of having their patients suffer. That is not adequate health care.
The reality is that the population is increasing and costs are rising. The minister said that we do not have a two-tier system. What nonsense. A billion dollars every year goes to the United States. Why? It is because Canadians cannot obtain essential health care services in a timely fashion so they go to the states. Why do we not keep that money in Canada?
The minister said that private expenditures were increasing. Of course they are increasing. Why? It is because people will not wait for the current public system to provide their health care services. They do not want to be in pain and they do not want to die. The government is forbidding them from doing that and is not accepting the fact that it cannot provide essential services in a timely fashion. That is a travesty. It is also extremely arrogant for the government to tell the public that it is forbidden to do that. In effect the government is sacrificing people's health on the altar of a dead socialist ideology.
We must recognize the financial crisis of today and the decrease in funding. We must recognize that people cannot be taxed more and that demand is going up. We must recognize that the Canada Health Act is hopelessly obsolete and unable to provide the same health care services to all people all the time, especially essential health care services. Sick people are in effect dying.
We must move to a new era. We will present constructive alternatives. Let us make a new made in Canada health act. It should not be one from the United States or one from England but one from Canada. We do not want an American style system. There is no resemblance whatsoever in what we propose to the system south of the border.
First, we must get the federal government, the provinces and the people together to define essential health care services for which all people across the country will be covered regardless of income. We may want to look at the Oregon model to begin with.
Second, let us allow the provinces to experiment with alternative funding models, such as private clinics, private insurance and the like. Why? It is because the system needs more money to provide health care. It is true that it needs to be revamped, but it also needs more money to reflect our current fiscal crisis and fiscal crunch in health care.
This is not a threat to medicare, rather it will make it better. What is so wrong with enabling private clinics to provide private services in the private sector where only private dollars will be exchanged? It will not in any way affect the public system.
In fact the demand on the public system will go down so that those people who are in this system will be able to get essential health care services in a more timely fashion. Is it a two-tier system? Yes, but we have one now. Is it unequal? Yes, but it provides for better access for all people regardless of their income. It ensures quicker access to those essential services that Canadians are not receiving now.
It is time to move forward. It is time to move with courage. It is not the time to delve into a morass of ideology but open our eyes and work together. My colleagues and I are more than happy to work with the Minister of Health in the interests of the Canadian public and the health of Canadians, to develop a fair and equitable solution and to provide better health care for all now and in the future.
We are not the enemy. We are merely trying to ensure that we have an improved system from coast to coast. Let us set up those national standards. As individuals we are not going to do that here, nor should we. We cannot nor should we play God. This must come from members of the public. It must come from the provinces. It must come from health care professionals. It must come from the federal government.
Let us ensure that we have portability for these national standards, that we have comprehensive coverage for essential health care services for all people, that we have good public administration of essential health care services, that we have universal coverage for essential health care services for all Canadians.
Last, let us ensure that we have essential health care services provided in a timely fashion. The Canadian people are not receiving their essential services in a timely fashion. One only needs to go into the field, go into the hospitals, to see the people who are not receiving them. Morale is the lowest it has ever
been, as is the pain and suffering on people's faces when told they have to wait 13 months potentially for their hip replacement or three months for their urgent heart surgery. That is not good medicine. That is bad medicine.