Privatizing health care results in worse access for less fortunate: CMA president

The role of private medicine in Canada Todd Battis speaks with Dr. Katherine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association.

Privatizing parts of the Canadian health-care system could result in some people getting better care than others, according to the president of the Canadian Medical Association.

Dr. Katharine Smart says, on the surface, it might seem privatization would increase capacity and take weight off the public system, but “that's not really what happens.”

“What starts to happen, of course, is differential access to care,” Smart said in an interview Thursday. “So people with more resources have more access, shorter wait times, and people who don’t, do not. “

Smart says, if Canadians want equity in accessing the health-care system, it needs more resources and investments to make it “successful.”

On Wednesday, CTV Atlantic reported on a private medical clinic that has set up in Dartmouth, N.S.

The clinic, run by Quebec-based health firm Algomed, already has more than 200 registered patients.

It’s planning to open more locations in the Maritimes and argues there’s a great need for access to primary care in the region.

"Halifax is possibly among the places in the country that has the least coverage of family doctors,” said Dr. Adam Hofmann, a Montreal-based physician and CEO of Algomed Clinics.

At last count, 105,185 people are on the Nova Scotia Health Find-A-Primary Care Provider list.

Hofmann says the clinic can help ease the burden on the overwhelmed public health system.

"Every time somebody comes into one of our clinics, that's one less person waiting in the emergency room," said Hofmann. "That's one extra hospital bed, that’s $2,000 off the taxpayer's bill at the end of the day."

But with a shortage of health-care professionals, Smart says having to staff a new, private system might only add to the problem.

“You can imagine just how much more desperate we would be in terms of trying to find staffing,” she said.

Canada’s current health-care system was designed in the 1960s and is due for an overhaul, said Smart. According to her, that could be done with the introduction of “medical homes,” where patients could see a doctor or nurse practitioner, and maybe a dietician.

“There is a team of people there that can address the concerns you present with,” said Smart. “If we can start to better support our family doctors as the leaders of those teams, then we will be able to work toward a more sustainable system.”

Streamlining the process for health professionals who have immigrated to Canada to be hired for health-care jobs is another way to alleviate the strain, said Smart.

She says the credentialing process in Canada is slow, tedious and expensive and systems need to be created to get immigrated health-care professionals working.

If Canada moved to a national physician licence, Smart says virtual care could be leveraged to serve people in remote areas where health professionals are lacking.

“Virtual care is very powerful,” she said. “Patients like virtual care. It improves their access. It decreases their wait. It gives physicians flexibility.”

But she says the first step to “stop the bleeding” of the system is to get the government on the same page as health-care professionals.

“There is many of us at the table with solutions. We are ready to do the work. But we need our politicians to acknowledge the problem.”