A new survey says that the vast majority of Canadians support a notion of a “patient health charter.” Such a charter would promise services, set out “rights” and “responsibilities” of the patient, and possibly create a complaint mechanism. Basically it would amount to another promise to deliver health care services faster and better.
The problem being that such a charter does not say how these services are to be delivered. It is frustrating as hell to see proposals like this brandied around as if they were solutions. We have already been promised better service. Putting it in a new document and calling it a charter would do nothing to accomplish the underlining goals of a universal and sustainable health care system.
Health care policy makers and the public in general have to stop goofing around and face the realities of the current system’s failings. It is not an administrative problem that can be fixed if we just become more committed to the issue or pour more money into it. The system is fundamentally unsustainable and structurally unsound.
We need to look at what works in other major industrial countries and accept the lessons of what has not worked here.