Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the motion in relation to the Canada social transfer because the Liberal government is simply not facing up to the reality of the situation in Canada regarding health care. It is trying to hide the reality by disguising it with a large lump sum transfer to the provinces and leaving the provinces to deal with the problems while at the same time continuing to apply, certainly at the moral level, a very restricted Canada Health Act.
In the Globe and Mail today there was a quote I can read to illustrate the problem very well. It is a quote from an adviser in the Prime Minister's office of all places who said:
My view is we don't really have a problem per se. We have an incipient potentially harmful issue. We are not freaked by it. We just have to keep a eye over the horizon.
It is obvious that somebody is a bit worried at least. It really bothers me that the government is acting as if we are back 20 years
when it had control of the media and propaganda and could tell people things and they actually believed it.
Today in the information age with freedom of information and all the information available to people they see through the charade of the government. Everyone in my riding knows that the health care system is in trouble. All the bleating and discussion from the other side of the House about the Canada Health Act being maintained forever does not mean anything. The average person on the street knows there are problems.
I cite a couple of examples in my riding to illustrate problems exist that will only get worse unless the government admits there is a problem and deals with it. For example, a lady in her early seventies late last fall badly twisted her shoulder lifting something. She tore the tendons away from the bone in her shoulder. She went to the doctor who told her that because the tendons had been torn away the only way to fix them was by reattaching them in surgery; they will not heal. She was put on the waiting list and in the meantime given some pain killers.
Five months later the woman was still taking more and more pain killers. Because it is a muscle and tendons are joined to it, the muscle had shrunk back and it became more of a major job to reattach the tendons. Toward the end of February the woman's husband said that they could not wait any longer. Still the doctors could not give any date for the woman to go to hospital to have the tendons reattached.
Luckily Vancouver is very close to the border of the United States. The gentleman arranged to take his wife to Seattle where she had surgery within two days of arriving there. The surgeons there said they could not understand what type of health care system there could be in Canada that would allow a woman to go for six months with that sort of condition. It was unbelievable and unheard of that it would happen in a place like Washington state.
That is one example and I will give another example of a gentleman back in 1989 who noticed a bit of a problem with some blood. He went along to see his doctor who said it was a pretty bad situation and sent him to a specialist for a second opinion. The gentleman asked how long it would take me to get an appointment. The doctor said that it would be approximately 10 weeks.
Anyone in the House who has ever been to a doctor and has subsequently had to go to a specialist knows that what I say is true. I certainly know in this case it was true. It takes anywhere from 10 weeks or more to see a specialist. I know it is true in this case because the story is about me.
When I found out that I would have to wait 10 weeks to see a specialist for what appeared to be a fairly serious problem, I said: "No, thank you. Please make arrangements for me to go to the United States. I do not care if it costs me money because we are talking about a very serious problem".
The doctor said: "Listen, let me make a few phone calls and see what I can do". The doctor managed to get me in to see a specialist the same day. Because I threatened to go to the United States, I was queue jumped, which is wrong in itself. I admit that it is wrong. It should not be that way.
Luckily for me I saw the specialist the same day and within a few days by also threatening to go to the United States for tests I was able to have a colonoscopy. I was diagnosed with colon cancer and given approximately six months to live. This was back in 1989.
When they discovered the problem and there was a suggestion that there would be a waiting list for surgery, I had to raise the point that I was not prepared to wait, that I would go to the United States. Again I was queue jumped. That was not the only operation I had. After having part of my colon removed in 1989 I was put on chemotherapy, which is a devastating experience. Luckily the service was available in my riding.
About six months later I required a second operation and again I was queue jumped. I was admitted through the emergency department of the hospital because the doctors knew that I would go to the United States.
They said to me: "The surgeon is on duty on Saturday. Why don't you come to the hospital, admit yourself through the emergency department, and we will take care of you?" That was wrong but I believe I am here today because of the action I took to go to the United States for some tests and to make sure I was queue jumped for the rest.
There is something wrong with a system that allows that sort of thing to happen. I had some of my tests done in the United States because I needed MRI, magnetic resonance imaging. I would have had to wait 10 weeks in Vancouver to go to St. Paul's Hospital which had an MRI. However it was only doing five scans a day, four of which were cranial, for brain tumours and things like that. There was only one per day for the rest of the body.
The unit could easily do probably 20 scans a day but there was no budget. People could take a pet dog or cat and have it scanned by the MRI at St. Paul's Hospital because they could pay for it to have an MRI. However we are not allowed to pay for our own MRI; it is against the Canada Health Act.
I went to Seattle and paid $1,000 U.S. for an MRI. It only took two days to get in. I went there and was treated like a client, not like a number on a medical services plan. I had my MRI. Incidentally nobody asked me how I was going to pay for it. They just admitted me and did the tests. They said: "Mr. White, why don't you have a cup of coffee, come back in two hours and we will give you the radiologist's report?" Three hours later I was on my way back to
Vancouver with the radiologist's report and all the X-rays to take to my doctor.
Everyone in Canada who has been through the process asks when the results will be ready after the test is done, only to be told that the doctor will call in two weeks if there is a problem. That is unacceptable. The quality of care is so much better in my experience when people are accountable to the system that there is no comparison. We have to start admitting there is something wrong with the system the way it stands.
I use the New Zealand experience from time to time. I would like to mention briefly an experience with my mother who is in her eighties. She needed a cataract operation. She had to wait under the old system in New Zealand for up to six years at 80 years of age. By paying for herself she quickly got the service because in New Zealand people are allowed to pay for themselves. In a two-year period the waiting list was reduced from six years to six weeks because people could pay in what the government would call a two-tier system.
In the long run admitting there are problems and dealing with them make it better for everybody. We should not be afraid of a two-tier system that enables some wealthy people to pay and in the end reduces waiting lists for everybody.