The Canada Health Act

With respect to the Canada Health Act, it is the position of the Doctors of BC that:

• The principle of accessibility needs to be strengthened through a commitment to treating patients within established wait time benchmarks for all major diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical services, as well as treatment in emergency departments.
• The principle of comprehensiveness needs to be expanded to reflect the core services of today: medical, hospital, pharmaceuticals, home care, long-term care, and inpatient rehabilitative services.
• The principle of sustainability must be added. Sustainability requires meeting clear and public standards for health human resources, infrastructure (including technology), clinical outcomes, and fiscal capacity.

Regarding services insured under the Medicare program, the provincial government should abandon attempts to define explicitly the terms medical necessity or medically required. Instead, the Doctors of BC calls for a pragmatic determination of insured services based on economic and political, but not clinical, rationales.

For more information, including background, analysis and references, please see the full policy statement.