Student suggests umbrella approach to health care

Keirsten Smith, a fourth year nursing student at the University of Windsor, offers an approach to dealing with the health care system.

“If you focus on multiple things at once you're gonna actually have the full umbrella approach to health care and I think that's what we need right now,” Smith said.

A recent Leger survey found 70 per cent of respondents worry they or a family member won't get good quality medical care when they need it which doesn’t come as a surprise to Windsor-West MPP Lisa Gretzky.

“They (provincial government) are systematically pulling the bricks out of the system,” said Gretzky who feels the Doug Ford government is trying to privatize healthcare. “All the government has to do is invest in the publically funded publically delivered system which is actually cheaper than moving towards privatization.”

A spokesperson with the Ministry of Health points out the healthcare budget under the Doug Ford government has gone up by over 18 billion dollars with 80 billion being invested into the system this year.

“It's about spending the money wisely. Not putting it into the shareholders pockets.” Gretzky said.

Many of the respondents used the words stressed, failing and point to long ER waits when describing the health care system.

Gretzky feels health care professionals crossing the border to work for better pay and benefits is an example of the broken Canadian system.

“We have a government that brought in Bill 124 which capped the wages of nurses and other health care professionals.”

According to the Ministry of Health 17,000 new nurses and 2400 new physicians started practicing last year, a record number.

However, Marilyn Gifford has a petition in Sarnia-Lambton advocating for a doctor residency program which she feels needs to be addressed in communities across Canada.

 

Marilyn: Here in Lambton County as in all across Canada, we are really hurting. People don't have access to family doctors and they're our primary care.

Gifford has the protection of a family doctor but receives calls from many who don’t.

“People are terrified. Their doctor is getting older or they simply don’t have one or now that they’re amalgamating so many patients onto one doctor.”