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Shift Required in Health Care Debate |
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July 14, 2005
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The Edmonton Social Planning Council is disappointed that the latest
“innovations” announced for Alberta’s health care system and the
responses of critics and supporters alike fall short of addressing the
real challenges facing the system.
“The proposed innovations on reducing waiting lists and allowing people
to be able to pay for fancy hip replacements are limited to changes
within the illness-care system,” says Phil O’Hara, Research and Policy
Analyst with the Council. “That demonstrates a narrow view of health
care,” he adds. “When we talk about health care it ought to be about
how we can stay healthy and avoid the costs, to ourselves and the
system, of getting sick or being injured in the first place.”
It is evident to the Council that this important perspective is not on
the public radar. We believe that if the province is serious about
innovation and a “Third Way” it will need to address the factors
outside of medicine and health care that contribute to our health and
well-being – “the causes behind the causes of ill health” (World Health
Organization). It will mean integrating into public policy the
well-documented evidence pointing to the variety of social and economic
factors that are the primary influencers on our ability to stay
healthy. These include whether we are poor or well off, the state of
our housing and other aspects of our physical environment, and the
education levels we are able to achieve.
The Edmonton Social Planning Council wants this approach to health care
to be on the decision-makers agenda. To initiate that process we have
published a Discussion Paper on the subject: Creating Social and Health
Equity: Adopting an Alberta Social Determinants of Health Framework
(available on our website at www.edmspc.com). We are taking our message
to politicians in all the parties and to officials in a number of
government ministries. We are also advancing this with other health
professionals, with those in the human services sector, and with the
media.
“There needs to be a shift in the “innovation” debate,” says O’Hara,
author of the Discussion Paper. “We need to move toward a focus on the
prevention of illness and chronic disease – that’s the only way we’ll
really be able to achieve having ‘the healthiest population’ in the
country. It’s also a shift that is essential for health care reform in
Alberta to succeed.”
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Sunday, 05 February 2012 
