Changing healthcare

Health professionals in the North Okanagan want big changes to the long-term care of senior citizens and money directed at regions that do things best.

A number of groups concerned about medical care attended a roundtable discussion Wednesday hosted by North Okanagan Shuswap MP Mel Arnold and the Canadian Medical Association. They included officials from First Nations communities, hospice care, homecare delivery and physicians.

“It's the longterm care system that really needs to be looked at, the long-term care for seniors,” said Arnold, following the roundtable talks. “The way the system was developed years ago just doesn't work anymore. Hospitals aren't really meant to be longterm care facilities.

“We need different long-term healthcare facilities, not hospital beds that are costly at a thousand dollars a day.”

Arnold said ideas that were pitched included more care in the home and more care in different types of facilities.

Funding was also discussed.

“Some of the provinces have a higher demographic of seniors within their population. Should those provinces receive a slightly better compensation? Should there be incentives for better care?”

The discussion is one of many across Canada as the federal government seeks to negotiate a new health accord with the provinces and territories.

Arnold acknowledged a need to change the archaic accord now in place.

“The last health accord was developed over 50 years ago, so who would have thought we'd be dealing with the things we have now,” Arnold said. “The international travel that takes place now, the communicable diseases. Not only that but also the issues around healthcare and personal privacy, the technology changes, the drug cost changes, there's no way anyone could have anticipated that 50 years ago.”

Arnold said the information gathered from the meeting will be submitted to the federal health minister or the standing committee on health.

Photo: Contributed