Life and death shouldn’t depend on your postal code

Dear Constituents of Niagara,

Canadians’ chances of surviving an accident or emergency shouldn’t depend on their postal code.

That’s according to the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, who recently called on the federal and provincial governments to set standards for treatment, including the maximum time and distance of a patient's trip to an emergency department. They believe that Canada needs national trauma-care standards to ensure that citizens can count on the same basic standard of care in an emergency no matter where they live. They’re right.

Provincial governments across the country are struggling with rising health-care costs as government revenues drop due to corporate tax cuts or reduced tax revenues. At the same time, hospitals in several provinces have been forced to temporarily close emergency departments because of a shortage of doctors. It's an enormous challenge to balance fiscal responsibility and the need to provide quality care.

However, people in the Niagara region know all too when what happens when a government hacks spending and then leaves the hard budget choices to non-elected officials. The Local Health Integration Network appointed by the province to oversee the Niagara Health System approved the closure of emergency departments in the hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne, all in an effort to save $28-million. Local residents, community leaders and politicians, including myself, strongly opposed the closures.

It’s debatable whether the LHINs took into account local realities such population booms during summer vacation season, or the provincial government’s strategy of encouraging southern growth. According to the ONDP, the LHINs’ provincially-appointed boards of directors lack the expertise or the tools to properly wield the enormous responsibility they’ve been given over how our health-care dollars are spent. Since the board was appointed by the Provincial Liberals, Niagara residents have no way of holding it accountable.

Regardless, the closures have created a situation in which an accident victim might live or die based on where he or she lives. That’s unacceptable.

Health care is a provincial jurisdiction, and for the most part it is up to the Provinces to decide how health care dollars are spent. However, Medicare is a national program funded by the federal Canada Health Transfer, and its common features and basic standards of coverage are laid out in the Canada Health Act. The fact that these basic standards do not include guidelines for emergency care is a serious oversight that should be corrected.

Emergency-care standards would not involve providing identical services in every community, since there are limited resources, doctors and specialists, and different regional needs. Instead, national standards would set basic guidelines such as an acceptable standard time and distance for a person to reach to effective emergency care, and how emergency rooms should be staffed, funded, and equipped. This would provide clarity for health care providers and confidence for Canadians.

Canadians deserve the same level of care wherever they live, and that requires standards that would apply across the country. It’s time that all levels of government work together to lay down the bottom line for emergency care.

Sincerely,

Malcolm Allen, MP