Editor:
Re: “You have the power,” Letter to Health Minister Adrian Dix, Jan. 19.
Our community sorely needs the proposed new seniors’ residential care facility and Ms. Houle’s angry letter doesn’t help. The never-ending dispute is denying our community the modern, upgraded facility that’s been proposed along with its 20 per cent increase in capacity. Her assertion that only a public facility is acceptable puts her at odds with reality. Most government-subsidized seniors’ residential care in B.C. is provided by the private sector on contract with public health care authorities. There is no imperative for the facility to be publicly owned – that notion comes from simplistic and discredited ideology. What’s important are quality of care and cost. Quality of care is determined by staffing levels, not facility ownership. And staffing levels are established by the health care authority for both types of facilities.
And while the cost of labour and other direct operating expenses are similar in public and private facilities, those run by public authorities carry a much higher and more expensive overhead. A private company doesn’t carry the weight of a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy that forms a central characteristic of our health care system and the authorities that run it.
The assertion that this facility is an attempt to “privatize our precious Canadian health care system” is ill informed. Our system has always had a large private-sector component. The “public” part of our health care system refers to who pays, not by who owns the facility providing the service. Seventy per cent of health care in this county is provided by private businesses. When you go see your doctor, fill a prescription, get vision care or visit a lab for tests, for example, those services are provided by for-profit businesses. And it’s the private, for-profit part of our health care system that seems to work the best.
Keith Maxwell, Sechelt
