It was a busy few days for CDM when the Premiers met in Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Council of the Federation last week. People came from all over Canada to show their support for Medicare and rally for a strong federal role in health care. Founding board member, Dr. Bob Woollard (right) and Executive Director, Sean Meagher (left) were in the middle of the action advocating for evidence-based improvements to our universal health care system. 

On the first day, Dr. Woollard spoke at the opening of a shadow summit hosted by the Ontario Health Coalition, and led a discussion on issues surrounding private, for-profit care. Fellow health care advocates were happy to hear from CDM and receive a physician's point of view on this issue.

That evening, Dr. Woollard attended the Premiers' Reception where he spoke with many Premiers and leading Canadian decision-makers and helped keep health care top of mind.

On day two, CDM hosted a press conference in which Dr. Woollard presented a First Aid Kit for Canada's health care system to NDP Health Critic, Libby Davies. Inside the kit were our recommendations on 5 key issues: Pharmacare, wait times, shifting care from acute to community settings, making better choices in care and treatment, and a strong federal role. Click here to watch the video of Dr. Woollard presenting the First Aid Kit to Libby Davies.

Before the press conference, CDM board member, Dr. Danyaal Raza appeared on CTV to give a sneak peek of the contents of the First Aid Kit. You can watch the full clip here.

Sean and Dr. Woollard then attended a rally for Medicare that brought out a whopping 1500 people (pictured above).

A huge thanks to Dr. Woollard for being such an excellent representative of CDM and to the Ontario Health Coalition for organizing the summit. 

Canadian Doctors for Medicare aims to give our health care system a shot in the arm, recommending that governments across Canada take action on 5 key issues. Read our papers here:

Rx: National Pharmacare - CDM suggests a prescription for a national pharmaceutical program to cure access and cost issues.

A Shift in Care, Covered by Medicare - How do we make sure that when we move care out of hospitals, we're not creating a negative impact on access, quality or equity, or putting undue burden on caregivers and workers?

Making the Right Choices - Overprescribing and overtreating can be curbed in Canada, and we should make sure that health professionals and patients are making the most appropriate care choices together.

Strategies to Reduce Wait Times - There are homegrown innovations in reducing wait times in Canada that can and should be scaled up and applied across the nation.

A Strong Federal Role - The federal government needs to come back to the table on issues such as a 2014 Health Accord, refugee health cuts, for-profit plasma clinics.

In July, Danielle Martin appeared on TEDxStouffville to talk about learning from our successes and failures in health care, and how we might begin scaling up successes across the country in order to spread innovation, or share a lesson learned from a failure.

Click here to watch the video.

For-profit plasma clinics are risky business

Opinion Editorial by Dr. Monika Dutt

Healthydebate.ca, July 22, 2013

 

Paying for more drugs will cut health care costs for governments: report

By Rebecca Lindell, featuring Dr. Danyaal Raza

Global News, July 19, 2013