Change the rules to improve medicare

Re If we don’t fix medicare, we may lose it: Editorial, June 16 I fully support our universal health care system that covers all patients regardless of previous illnesses or recent changes in medications. Your editorial overlooks the fact that a single-tier system does not exist.

Federal prisoners, WSIB patients, politicians and members of the military often receive preferential, more timely treatment. Also, as Ottawa has failed to enforce the portability provision of the Canada Health Act, Quebec patients who see a physician in another province must usually pay out-of-pocket, with partial reimbursement later.

Faced with frozen global budgets, many hospitals close operating rooms for weeks every year. Wait times for elective surgery are prolonged. And underemployed MDs and nurses in frustration permanently leave the province.

In Ontario, 28,000 elderly patients are on a wait list for a longterm care bed. Many occupy active beds in hospitals. Yet the Ministry of Health has no plans to build more beds.

New sources of revenue must be found. Canadians seeking speedier care in the U.S. should be permitted to spend their own money on their own health in their own province — even if they are not a member of a special group.

If the Canadian Health Act and certain pieces of provincial legislation were changed, operating rooms could expand in major Canadian cities and provide elective surgery to foreign patients.

Of note is that the number of medical tourists from China in the past year has increased by a factor of five. Most now go to the U.S. Were they permitted to come here, this would provide new employment for our own health professionals, as well as badly needed revenue for hospitals and ministries of health. Dr. Charles S. Shaver, Ottawa