Internationally respected health economist Robert Evans is the featured speaker during a two-day Action Assembly and conference hosted in Toronto by the Ontario Health Coalition November 6-7, 2010.
On Saturday the annual Action Assembly sets the direction for the Coalition for the coming year. With an election scheduled for October 6, 2011, the activities of the coalition will be critical in defining health care issues leading to that election. Saturday is also a time for local coalitions to share their accomplishments from the past year and to give updates on what is happening in their region.
On Sunday the OHC features a conference titled: Manufactured Crisis: The Myth of Medicare’s Unsustainability and what it means for Ontarians.
With the news reverberating with stories about out-of control health costs, a crisis atmosphere is being used to justify cuts, endless restructuring and delisting of clinical services Ontarians rely upon. But a closer look at the numbers shows a different story.
This conference will provide the information and a strategy to topple the myth of health care unsustainability.
Speakers for the two-day event include:
Dr. Robert G. Evans: Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia, Evans is the founder of the University’s Centre on Health Services and Policy Research. Evans’groundbreaking comparative studies of health care systems and funding strategies have shaped policy in Canada and provided insight to governments and health agencies worldwide. An Officer of the Order of Canada, he has served as a member of the British Columbia Royal Commission on Health Care and Costs, and of the National Forum on Health. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Institute Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, where he was director of the Population Health Program from 1987 to 1997. Evans is also an honorary life member of the Canadian College of Health Services Executives and of the Canadian Health Economics Research Association, and a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance (US). He is the first Canadian to win the Baxter International Foundation Prize for Health Services Research.
Dr. Pat Armstrong: Professor in the Department of Sociology at York University, Armstrong is co-author and/or editor on more than a dozen books on health care. She has also published on a wide variety of issues related to women’s work and to social policy. She has served as Chair of the Department of Sociology at York University and Director of the School of Canadian Studies at Carleton University. She was a founding partner in the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health, and is the Chair of Women and Health Care Reform – a working group on health reform that crosses the Centres of Excellence for Women’s Health. She is a site director for the Ontario Training Centre in Health Services and Policy Research. Professor Armstrong supports civil society organizations, serving on the board of directors of the Canadian Health Coalition and the Canadian Centre for Policy Analysis.
Other speakers include: Hugh Mackenzie economist; Dr. Duncan Etches and Joyce Jones, Intervenors, B.C. Court Challenge on single-tier Medicare; Hon. Roger Gallaway, LLB and former MP; Ross Sutherland, R.N., M.A.; Mike McBane, Coordinator, Canadian Health Coalition; Barbara Proctor and Kay Tod, RNs (ret) and Natalie Mehra, Director, Ontario Health Coalition.
The conference and action assembly take place at the Bond Place Hotel across from the Yonge-Dundas Square.
For more information and registration forms, go to www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
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