In Brief: Defending Medicare, funding a hospital, and voting for a favourite doctor

As voters go to the polls in the Toronto Centre by-election, the Ontario government has pledged $15 million to save the Toronto Grace Health Centre. With new money in hand, the Salvation Army reversed its decision to cease operating the aging facility. The NDP have made hospital funding a core issue in the byelection. Curiously, Health Minister Deb Matthews said “we have not let a hospital close under our watch and I can assure you we would not let the Grace.” Fort Erie, Port Colborne and Shelburne may beg to differ. … Ontario is rebuilding 4,183 existing beds and updating facilities at 37 long-term care homes. The government has pledged to redevelop 35,000 older beds in a decade-long plan. Now if they would only fund adequate staff to provide the care. … The Ontario Health Coalition is urging members to vote for Dr. Gordon Guyatt for the British Medical Journal’s life-time achievement award. For 30 years Guyatt has been a leading advocate for universal, publicly funded health care. You can vote at www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full339/dec29_2/b5546 . … Dr. Michael Rachlis defends Canadian heart care as “good as the best centres in the U.S.” in an opinion piece in today’s Toronto Star. U.S. Medicare critics have jumped on Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams for seeking heart surgery in their country, claiming this was evidence of Canadian Medicare’s inadequacy. Rachlis points out that very few Canadians seek such surgery in the U.S., while Americans are known to come to Toronto for valve surgery, for which the city is world famous. A 2002 study by American and Canadian academics found that one out of 500 Canadian hospitalizations occurred in the U.S. and 80 per cent of these were for pregnancy-related conditions – women going into labour while travelling. Another 10 per cent were for other emergency conditions, meaning about one in 5,000 Canadian hospitalizations in the U.S. were for patients deliberately seeking elective care, like Williams. To read the full article, go to http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/760217–medicare-attack-dogs-barking-up-wrong-tree