Report calls for Canadian patient safety board

The National Post features an article on its front page a report from the Canadian Patient Safety Institute commissioned by Health Canada. One of the recommendations is to establish an agency to protect patient safety.

Yes, this sounds all well and good, but it’s just another report on health care. We have laws in Ontario that is supposed to protect patients but they are 1) not enforced or 2) obstructed.

The main reason is because billions of dollars are spent on agencies, like the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board that do better to protect doctors and hospitals than patients. Not only that the Physician Protection Services receives approximately 30% of its budget from public money from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to protect doctors when they face medical malpractice suits.

So yes, we are paying provincial sales tax; G.S.T and income tax so a portion of that money goes to the Ministry of Health to pay doctors to kill, disable or psychologically torment us. But the government won't cover our legal fees to fight them.

Conundrum

Ask me what I’m afraid of?

I’m not afraid of much as I have been through quite a bit. But I have a simmering unease and sense that my life is not in good hands by our health care "professionals" if I need it to be while I am residing here in Hamilton. So far, I have only met one doctor I truly trust (as opposed to "like") as the rest have a mean streak in them that I have never seen anywhere else in Ontario.

Most (I said 'most', not 'all') health care professionals that I have met in Ontario are ethical, honest and comply with the law. But I’ve yet to meet a Hamilton physician that is. They behave as if they are above the law and they are. Those agencies, including the Ministry of Health – those that are supposed to be protecting the public - let them get away with it because they know they can. There are limited legal resources for those who have money and none for those who don’t.

Why is it this way?

I have no idea. Status quo. Political power. Belief that political economy gives one more privilege than others. Extortion. Incompetence. Indifference. Attitude. Discrimination. Lack of media attention. Media cover-up.

Or perhaps it’s because the Deputy Minister of Health was an executive from Hamilton Health Sciences so he puts in a good word so Hamilton’s hospitals can kill at their leisure.

Who knows why one area in the province is worse than another? Lack of provincial standards is one answer. Enforcement is another. Lack of political power in the least.