Read the Story Two promises in its election platform could help British Columbia’s new government improve health care for patients and become a policy leader in Canada: a “universal health-care guarantee” and a willingness to learn from more successful peers around the world through a “100-day patients first” review. With almost 100,000 British Columbians on wait lists — up eight per cent since the end of the pandemic — change can’t come soon enough. In fact, these are two changes other provinces should be making, too. The Conservative government’s guarantee of universal health care could offer immediate help to patients, promising “publicly funded treatment through another qualified provider when medically recommended surgical wait benchmarks are exceeded.” Basically, if public hospitals can’t provide surgeries in time, the government will pay private clinics to do them, with priority presumably being given to patients requiring cancer treatment, heart procedures and other lifesaving services. In the private sector, businesses face consequences when they accept money from customers but then don’t deliver promised services or products. Consumers regularly win in small claims court for such failures. But provincial health-care systems across Canada routinely shrug their shoulders when they fail to deliver. In Europe, there’s the opposite: accountability. At the turn of the century, Denmark also faced long wait times in its public health-care system. Their experts credit a similar wait time “guarantee” with reducing wait times. Danish patients who face a delay of more than 30 days for surgery can visit a private facility and the public system will pay for it. The European Union also has an accountability measure: the “cross border directive.” It allows EU patients to travel to other countries, pay for surgery and receive reimbursement from their home country up to what it would have paid for treatment locally. Many such lessons can be drawn from our international peers, which is why the “100-day” review promised by B.C.’s new government is also encouraging. There is no need for B.C. or any other province to reinvent the wheel. Sweden, Denmark, France, Japan and many other developed nations have what Canadians want: a…​Read More