Health care hot topic.

• Author: MICHELS, BOB
• Position: Brief Article

Who is to blame for province's health care woes?

What has replaced "the weather" as our favourite topic of discussion? "health care." Ask almost anyone in Northern Ontario for his or her opinion about health care and you will get one!

We were not always concerned about health care. I. can remember house calls, evening office hours for doctors and open hospital beds. OK, so I am over 50. Nonetheless, like many of you, I believe that more can, and must be done, to restore reasonable access to primary health care within a reasonable time frame.

What is the situation now? In Thunder Bay, for example, many people are unable to even find a family doctor. As a result, some have started to travel to Nipigon, a 90-mile trip, because they can actually get an appointment to see a doctor within a reasonable time frame!

So who is to blame for this situation? We all are - government, physician governing bodies, health-care administrators, patients, you, and me.

For a start, let us look at how well we have looked after our own health. Using northwestern Ontario figures, here is how we stack up against the rest of the province:

* The overall mortality rate is 11 per cent higher compared to the rest of the province

* Diseases of the heart and circulatory system are 28 per cent higher than the Ontario average

* Cancer rates are higher than the Ontario average

* Accidents, poisoning and suicide rank higher than the rest of Ontario by 26 per cent

* Residents of north-western Ontario are hospitalized 33 per cent more frequently than the province overall

* Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disease is 60 per cent higher

* Nervous system and sense disorders are 46 per cent higher

* Respiratory disorders are 44 per cent higher

* Injuries and poisonings are 43 per cent higher

* Circulatory system disorders are 29 per cent higher

* Alcohol consumption is 22 per cent higher

So, through our choice of lifestyles, we are partly the authors of our own misfortune. In addition, like other Ontario residents, we have been seduced by the very costly new medical technology CATScans, MRIs, and the like.

Medical morality also contributes to our dilemma as we generate most of our health-care costs in the twilight years of our life, sometimes attempting to extend lives far beyond their natural limits despite the personal indignities and outrageous costs involved in doing so.

More doctors, particularly in Northern Ontario, might open the door to more timely, preventive health...