There is no doubt that nations
worldwide, including Canada, lost the war on containing coronavirus.
Most nations, including all western countries, chose an unproven, never-tested
business closure and population containment model instead of a more traditional
approach.
We wreaked havoc in the small business sector and tossed millions of employees
on an unemployed heap. We demanded that healthy people self-isolate (quarantine).
We had no detailed plan. There was no effort to anticipate how coronavirus
might spread or where we were most vulnerable.
No one thought about the vulnerability of the residents of communal living such
as personal care homes, senior’s residences, university dorms, jails and
prisons, to name just some. Thousands were infected, and many died as a result.
Governments recognized that we needed to keep some workers on the job to
maintain minimal public services and ensure access to food, water and essential
supplies. No plan was made to protect these essential workers from infection or
minimize their infection of others.
We allowed international travel and thereby left a door open to importing the
virus and its variants from all over the world. Despite federal government
protestations, we have imported every virus variant from a wide array of
nations from coast to coast in Canada. Our porous borders are on record every
day under reports of virus variants in every province and territory.
Not one political jurisdiction in Canada has
managed to contain coronavirus spread or recognized its failures and tried
alternative means of controlling the virus.
No Canadian government has provided the public with information on common and
inexpensive methods of boosting personal immune efficiency with vitamins,
minerals and other supplements.
We lost every battle and the containment war. Every province and territory has
had claimed its health care system is overwhelmed. Elective surgeries and some
critical procedures were postponed due to COVID-19 patients taking up all
physical and medical resources.
It is disgusting and frightening that none of our medical and political leaders
are turning their attention to rebuilding our health care systems to address
the backlog of postponed procedures and long waiting lists.
The health care systems in place failed us. Considering government spending on
health care, that is unacceptable. Every government has excuses for why its
health care system is not working as it should, but none offer solutions. We
need to scrap systems that fail to respond to our needs and build something
better. The blame game is over.
In 2019, total health expenditure in Canada was expected to reach
$265.5 billion, or $7,064 per person. It is anticipated that,
overall, health spending represented 11.5% of Canada’s gross domestic product
(GDP). Inflation has pushed those numbers up, and COVID-19 has pushed spending
well over projections for 2020 – 21.
The fat cats at the top, medical and political, have enjoyed freedom from
accountability for too long. They need to step up and fix the system they are
responsible for or get out of office.
Rearranging the existing personnel and facilities again is not acceptable. We
need to introduce a private provider alternative and a model that recognizes
and adequately pays the nurses and technicians who carry the bulk of the
patient care load. Paying ICU doctors $400 an hour and ICU nurses $45 is
ludicrous. The nurses are on high alert for their entire 8 or 12-hour shift.
The arrival of coronavirus vaccines has rescued the politicians. The COVID-19
crisis will pass soon. We have to keep their feet to the fire and insist they
fix the health care systems that failed us.
We do not know when the next epidemic will hit, but we know that we are not
prepared, and thousands more may die as a result. That is a dereliction of duty
that has become normal for politicians and health care officials.
John Feldsted ... is a political commentator, consultant, and strategist. He makes his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
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