Patients should be at centre of health services

Posted on July 12, 2011 in Health Delivery System

Source: — Authors:

TheGlobeandMail.com – news/commentary/editorials – Consider This
Published Sunday, Jul. 10, 2011.

Medicare is built around those who provide care – doctors and nurses – not those who receive it. With an aging population, every Canadian hospital must move quickly to revolutionize its health services, with patients at the centre. If not, they should face a cut in public funds.

Most patients with multiple medical problems today are elderly; it is the price of a long life. But that cost should not include disjointed medical care, with numerous specialists in different locations and no one seemingly in charge. When these patients lack proper care, a medical crisis can hit, creating a logjam for hospitals, cancelled operations and wasted resources.

Thousands of elderly patients sit in acute-care hospitals where they receive well-meaning but mishandled care: they are connected to machines of little benefit and prescribed drugs that worsen their cognitive function. They grow weaker, so the only solution seems a nursing home, which are often full. Only then do patients become the centre of something – a medical tragedy, not of their own making.

Some hospitals are working to fix the problem by merging with rehabilitation facilities. Others are creating a form of one-stop shopping, where health services are brought to patients.

More needs to be done. Failure to radically overhaul Canada’s health-care system carries a risk of making medicare unaffordable for us all.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/patients-should-be-at-centre-of-health-services/article2092995/ >

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INFOGRAPHIC Alternative levels of care across Canada
Published Sunday, Jul. 10, 2011.  Last updated Monday, Jul. 11, 2011.

< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alternative-levels-of-care-across-canada/article2092958/?from=2092995 >

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