Public Meetings on Health Wrap Up

Sunday, July 08, 2007 11:51 AM

The final public forum on health in B.C. was held in Vancouver yesterday and the Ministry of Health is saying that, so far, the "Conversation on Health" process has been a major success.

According to the Ministry, there have been more than 10 thousand written and phoned-in submissions, participation of more than 2,400 people in 74 public foums across the province, and there have been more than 4.4 million hits on the website.

All input received through the Conversation on Health will be summarized in a report that will be presented to government this fall. It will be used to help shape health care programs, services and policies.

Popular themes that have surfaced during the forums include:

More focus on illness prevention rather than treatment
Establish 24/7 clinics close to emergency rooms to help ease pressures
Develop multi-disciplinary clinics to provide more holistic health care
Open up discussions on the ethics and options for end-of-life care
Ensure supports for addicted and mentally ill British Columbians are integrated across government
Provide more community home supports, and train and support families to help care for the sick and elderly at home
Establish more centres for specific surgical procedures to help address wait times
Expand the scope of practice for health professionals to make the best use of their skills and training

Although the public forum segment of the process is now over, B.C. residents can still register their comments by e-mail, toll-free phone line, letter or the website and through MLA offices, until the Sept. 30 deadline

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Posted on Sunday, July 08, 2007 11:51 AM in Health by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: netsurfer on July 8 2007 1:58 PM

You know I often wonder just how practical these expensive hearings, meetings and forums are. I know that Northern Health holds get togethers every 2 years on the pretext of sharing knowledge and they come from all over Canada on taxpayers dollars and time. Once here they hold "workshops" and then it nothing more than a great big social.
Just once I would like verifiable results of these gatherings to be published to prove that these get-to-gethers are nothing more than a taxpayer funded trip and party.

Posted by: ammonra on July 8 2007 3:18 PM

It is interesting to note that what appears to be the number 1 recommendation by participants all across the province is not mentioned in the list. That recommendation is, of course, that public health care remain public and that "private" services not be increased.

Is the absence of this point an indication that the PR campaign to incresae the level of "private" care has begun?

As usual, I will again make the point that so called "private" health care is not private at all, but is publicly funded for-profit health care. "Private" care would involve absolutely no tax dollars.

Posted by: REALIST on July 8 2007 7:08 PM

This was just Campbell pulling the wool over the eyes of the majority of British Columbians. Combined with the corporate led press the average citizen eats this up like lollipops. They believe that they are being told the truth and heard. I attended several of these "Conversations" and it is quite clear that the public does not want private healthcare. Campbell is now armed with the publics real opinions and his highly expanded legion of spin doctors will attempt to go to work to reverse this opinion. This had nothing to do with finding out what the public wants, it is just windowdressing and an information grab at what work they must do to convince us that selling us out is in our best interest. The best part is that it was our tax dollars that funded this farse. Campbell is a poor excuse for a human being, but we are all sheep.