Mr. Chairman, it would be presumptuous on my part to say I have all the answers. I do not. However there are some principles we could address to help us deal with the problem at least in part. First, we could recognize that not all health services and procedures need to be provided by highly trained doctors, specialists or even nurses. Other people could perform them because a lot of health care services are the vested interest of certain professional groups.
Second, we could provide and allow for a system that permits home care. Many patients would be far healthier at home or in a setting of their choice than in an institution. Providing this kind of care would help a lot.
Third, it is absolutely imperative that our institutions of higher learning address the problem of insufficient numbers of people being trained in the various health fields.
Fourth, we must address the issue of attitude. All professionals including myself should make service rather than money our number one concern. Let us look at the recent situation in British Columbia. It seems the most important issue to the doctors, particularly physicians, has been money rather than people.
That is wrong. The health care profession is a service profession. Its practitioners are there to help and heal people. They are healers in the first instance. Sure, we want to pay them well. We want them to have a good standard of living. However when greed takes precedence over service we have a serious problem.
We need to move on all four of these areas.