Dear Mr.Lavell:
Thank you for your letter for the Prime Minister. It is important for the Prime
Minister to hear from Canadians personally and to also receive a reply back from
him.
I have been involved in trying to address the cuts to health care since it began
in 1994 when my father was sent home to die with no aid to me or my family. The
only answer we were given was, "sorry, but you're at the beginning of the
cuts". I said God help us by the time their finished. I can tell you honestly
now, that the cuts were the worst decision to happen
in Canadian history! I can't even imagine how many Canadians may have died
because of those cuts, so I must say that some cuts don't heal and for those
Canadians, it's true. Where is the support of government when cancer patients
needs drugs that are not covered yet it is the only hope they may have? Where
is the drug coverage for the many Canadians that have no drug
plan at all and have to suffer needlessly?
Again, please keep publicly delivered health care and publicly funded health
care for all Canadians and reassure us that our public money will NOT go to any
private for-profit facility, clinic or surgery. It is wrong and we need to make
those important decisions.
Thank you
Sincerely,
Debbie Kelly, SSStJ
Chairperson, NS Citizens' Health Care Network
cc: Network organizations
----- Original Message -----
From: "Prime Minister/Premier ministre" <pm@pm.gc.ca>
To: "healthnetwork" <healthnetwork@eastlink.ca>
Cc: "Tony Clement, P.C., M.P." <minister_ministre@hc-sc.gc.ca>
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 11:21 AM
Subject: Office of the Prime Minister / Cabinet du Premier ministre
Dear Ms. Kelly:
On behalf of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, I would like to thank you for
your e-mail, in which you raised an issue which falls within the portfolio of
the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Health. The Prime Minister always
appreciates receiving mail on subjects of importance to Canadians.
Please be assured that the statements you made have been carefully reviewed. I
have taken the liberty of forwarding your e-mail to Minister Clement so that he
too may be made aware of your comments. I am certain that the Minister will give
your views every consideration. For more information on the Government's
initiatives, you may wish to visit the Prime Minister's Web site, at
www.pm.gc.ca.
L.A. Lavell
Executive Correspondence Officer
for the Prime Minister's Office
Agent de correspondance
de la haute direction
pour le Cabinet du Premier ministre
>>> From : healthnetwork
healthnetwork@eastlink.ca Received : 14
>>> Apr 2007 08:47:53 PM >>>
Way to go Halifax Herald! Say it like it is.
Way to go Halifax Herald!
Dear Hon. Prime Minister:
Mr. Prime Minister Harper, If it is your idea of fixing wait times is to
guarantee ONE procedure per province per year by the year 2010, you have got to
be joking.
Canadian lives are at rish by such ill-fated decisions with little concern for
life. We deserve more, we expect more and we demand more.
It is hard to write further than what the our local Halifax Herald newspaper
states. Shame on you and any politicians who think we will be hoodwinked into
believing you really want to fix and improve our public health care
system.
I challenge you all to do better!
Sincerely,
Debbie Kelly, SSStJ
Chairperson, NS Citizens' Health Care Network
902-455-9164
http://ns-medicare.tripod.com
Harper's Wait Time Guarantees
Shameful sham
Editorial in Halifax Chronicle-Herald, April 11/07
THE prime minister has shown where he stands on wait times. The sick can wait
for service, but he can't wait for an election.
If provinces want to set sham targets that don't shorten how long Canadians
are waiting for cancer treatment, heart surgery, MRIs, CT scans or joint
replacements, that's OK with Stephen Harper.
He's even handing them $600 million to play this charade, and saying this
delivers on a promise 'to develop a health-care guarantee that ensures patients
receive essential medical treatment within clinically acceptable waiting times.'
The deal with the provinces does nothing of the sort. Each province merely has
to guarantee a maximum wait for one service by 2010. The wait doesn't have to
meet any clinical test. Provinces can pick any easy target they please.
They are setting maximums longer than today's average wait for service, longer
than benchmarks they agreed to in 2005 and longer than times recommended by
doctors. This is no way to improve services on which lives depend.
But the deal will shorten the wait that seems to matter most to Mr. Harper -
the time he must spend as a minority prime minister before seeking a
parliamentary majority. Before rushing to the polls, he needs to check wait
times off his list of promises and this deal gives him his coveted political
checkmark. Yet the sick are being betrayed. Pledges in a Dec. 2, 2005,
Conservative announcement of the guarantee are not being kept. This deal doesn't
establish 'a medically acceptable maximum time' for any service. It doesn't
'fulfil the commitment' made by governments in 2004 to set maximum waits in five
areas. It won't 'be implemented right away.'
Who's being fooled here? Not patients. They can't be duped by phoney
'guarantees' that don't relieve their anxious vigils. Can Mr. Harper honestly
tell them he'd find it acceptable for one of his family to wait eight weeks for
radiation - the maximum time guaranteed by Nova Scotia and New Brunswick?
Provinces agreed in 2005 to a four-week benchmark and the consensus among
oncologists is 10 days.
Canada needs a leader who will invest the time and resources to bring key wait
times within medically acceptable limits. A national alliance of medical
specialists estimates the realistic cost is $3 billion. Instead, we've been
fobbed off with fake improvements driven by a political timetable.
It's Mr. Harper who should be made to wait - for his majority. He hasn't
earned one with this failure to do the right thing, as promised, for sick
Canadians who are waiting too long for their treatment.