Making Canadian Health-Care more efficient
Podiatrists - Did you know that many podiatrists get training and can become board certified for most surgeries below the knee? But in Canada their services are not covered under our universal health care plan. Recently my mother broke her arm requiring, eventually and unfortunately, 3 surgeries (we're hoping that's it). Because her surgeries weren't scheduled she was placed in the queue, requiring her to wait in a hospital bed, without eating or drinking. She needed to be ready for surgery at any point of the day. The ortho does not just operate on you, first come first serve. There are priorities, which make sense. So my Mom, because of other more serious injuries, ended up waiting for a week in total, fasting every day, waiting patiently to be a patient. Here's the thing, a number of the surgeries that bumped her were foot surgeries. One gentleman shattered his ankles falling off a ladder and then an unfortunate girl lost her foot in a lawn mower accident. Terrible stuff. But if this happened in Michican for example, where my brother practices as a podiatric surgeon, he would have been able to have performed these surgeries, freeing up the orthopedic surgeon to attend to people like my Mom who waited for literally, hundreds of hours in a hospital bed. Our health care should cover podiatric surgeries and we should allow trained podiatrists in the OR.
Pharmacists - Many jurisdictions allow pharmacists to prescribe medications. While doctors are experts on health, pharmacists are experts on drugs and sometimes the two professions don't interact as well as we would hope. I don't exactly know where to draw the line and what the potential risks could be but it seems to me that in places where they can prescribe, things are going just fine. If we could rely on our pharmacists more to get us our antibiotics when we step on a nail instead of waiting
Midwives - Midwifery is increasing in popularity in North America after obstetricians took over the business of birthing in the early 20th century. In my European countries the majority of births are handled by midwife-nurses. With more midwives taking care of low-risk births we could free up our doctors and surgeons to meet our other needs, all at a savings to the tax payer.
Nurse practitioners - This could be the big one. Nurse practitioners can diagnose, order tests, and prescribe drugs at a lower cost to the system than GPs. Rural areas could benefit the most as they may not be able to sustain a full-time GP given the current AHS funding model. Imagine how shorter the walk-in clinic line would be if we had 3 NPs and 1 GP instead of 2 GPs taking patients on a first come first serve basis. It's not that we don't even have enough of them, it's that they aren't finding work here in Alberta due to archaic funding models.
Mental Health - There is a need for professional mental health care workers like psychologists, social workers, and counsellors, but what if a large portion of our mental health problems could be alleviated by very basic social interventions. What if we took those who are under/unemployed, or perhaps retired, and gave them basic suicide prevention and active listening training. What if this inexpensive labour force could travel to people's homes and talk to them, help them organize their lives, or maybe just do the dishes beside them? What if we had more entry level helpers who could play games with the elderly, provide baby-sitting for people with weird work hours, or just listen to over-tired over-stressed parent?
Maybe I'm naive and I'm obviously not that knowledgeable when it comes to the ins and outs of our health care system but what would be the counterargument to any of these suggestions? Share this with experts who could weigh in.
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