Doctors dissect health policies
Tracy Barron | CBC Online News | Oct. 2

Both the Liberals and Tories are promising to improve the daily lives of people in this province, including access to health care when they need it.

But it's the difference in tone between the platforms that doctors say sets the two parties apart.

The governing Liberals promise to continue their commitment to quality and accessible health care. That includes more MRIs, kidney dialysis machines and shorter wait lists for cardiac surgery and nursing homes.

The problem the Liberals run into, however, is that doctors aren't impressed with their track record.

Cat scan promise falls flat

Josh Foley, a general practitioner in Burin, is skeptical about promises made going into, or during, an election.

The Burin Peninsula has been asking for a CAT scanner for eight years. The Liberals are now promising one. "I'm concerned that it won't show up," he says. "I'm concerned that it took an election to get the promise of a CAT scanner for the Burin Peninsula."

Foley has been a vocal opponent of the Liberal government's approach to health care. As far as he's concerned, the Liberal red book doesn't contain anything new.

He likes the Tory plan because it is new. The party hasn't been in power since 1989, so the blue book outlines a long-term approach for stabilizing health care.

Andrew Major, a St. John's anesthetist, judges the Liberal plan based on what's not in it.

He says the red book lacks the realization that many areas of the system need to be overhauled, and that existing doctor recruitment and retention efforts have failed.

PC, Liberal promises overlap

Still, the two books are similar in many areas. Both parties promise to:

• go after Ottawa for more health care money;
• reduce wait lists for diagnostic and treatment procedures;
• ensure access to a primary health care provider close to where people live 24 hours a day, seven days a week;
• place diagnostic and treatment equipment throughout the province;
• focus on wellness and healthy living; and
• establish primary health care centres staffed by teams of health professionals.

Despite the similarities, Major prefers the blue book for its tone. He likes its promise of accountability within the system, and the inclusion of health professionals in shaping its future.

"I think that's really important because a lot of the things the Liberals have touted as things they've done, especially as financial incentives, we really had to drag out of them," he says.

"It was a long and difficult (job) action last year and there really wasn't a lot of respect given to physicians."

Likes business approach

The line in the blue book that caught Foley's eye was the valuing of care providers, and the impetus on a united approach to improving health care from the top down.

He buys into Conservative Leader Danny Williams belief that health care must be run as a business.

"We have to allocate the monies we have more appropriately," Foley says. "If we do that, my personal feeling is there's enough money in the system to make everything work."

He says a Conservative promise to review the existing regional management structures, providing its lived up to, would go a long way to making that happen.

From Oct. 2, Jeff Gilhooly of the St. John's Morning Show discusses the Liberal and PC health platforms with Dr. Josh Foley of Burin and Dr. Andrew Major of St. John's (runs 8:39).

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