In a very welcome analysis of the recent news of funding cuts, Carol
Goar, health editor of the Toronto Star, packs a wallop in Friday
November 16th's editorial article titled 

"Conservatives axe network"

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/276891 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
This is how a nation's social infrastructure is dismantled. 
First, the Conservatives cancelled the child-care agreements the
Liberals had signed with the provinces. Next, they gutted the Kelowna
Accord, the $5.1 billion federal-provincial agreement to tackle
aboriginal poverty. Now they're scrapping another piece of Liberal
handiwork.
Effective March 31, 2008, the Canadian Health Network will cease to
exist.
For the past eight years, it has provided citizens and medical
professionals with a reliable, non-commercial source of online
information about how to stay healthy and prevent disease.
Although the website (www.canadian-health-network.ca) is managed by the
Winnipeg-based Public Health Agency of Canada, it is a collaboration of
26 organizations - government departments, universities, hospitals,
libraries and non-profit health providers - who draw on 1,600
specialists across the country.
Nothing quite like it exists anywhere in the world. The closest
approximation is New Zealand's Health Promotion Forum.
Two weeks ago, Catherine Drew, executive director of the Canadian Health
Network, notified the 26 member agencies that the program would be
eliminated at the end of the fiscal year.
Most of the participants were shocked. A few had been picking up trouble
signals - funding delays and bureaucratic dithering.
The only explanation Drew provided was that the Public Health Agency had
been ordered to cut its grants and contributions to outside groups by
$16.7 million and it had reluctantly decided to pull the plug on the
network.
"Why would the government choose to cut this program when it has a
surplus?" asked Connie Clement, executive director of the Ontario
Prevention Clearinghouse, one of the network's affiliates. "Where does
it put the question of partnerships between the government and the
non-profit sector?"
Four or five years ago, such a move might have been understandable. The
Canadian Health Network got off to a slow start. During its
developmental stages, few people knew what it was or how it worked.
But lately, its website has been getting 380,000 hits a month, 40 per
cent of them health-care professionals. In the last year alone, its
usage has increased by 70 per cent. It has established a reputation as a
trustworthy portal in a cyberworld of drug manufacturers, health-care
conglomerates and self-promoting quacks.
Shutting down the network was a "very difficult decision," said Alain
Desroches of the Public Health Agency. "The agency will continue to look
for effective and innovative ways to provide Canadians with high
quality, credible information through other means."
In fact, Health Minister Tony Clement launched a new website,
www.healthycanadians.gc.ca, in October, to provide users with
information about all of the government's programs - its children's
fitness tax credit, its revised Canada Food Guide, its toy safety tips,
its latest product recalls and its healthy pregnancy guide - designed to
promote an active, well-balanced lifestyle.
There's certainly nothing wrong with centralizing all of Ottawa's health
information in one place. 
What's missing from the new database is any reference to the links
between health and the environment, disease and poverty, or violence and
gun control. Nor does it touch sensitive topics such as abortion,
genetically modified foods or sexual abuse. It completely overlooks
mental illness.
In contrast, the Canadian Health Network is all-encompassing. It looks
at controversial questions from all sides. It is constantly updated as
new knowledge becomes available.
Losing the program won't be the end of the world. Canadians will find
other useful websites such as MedlinePlus.gov run by the National
Institutes of Health in the United States or AboutKids-Health.ca run by
Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. The members of the network will
find other ways to reach out to the public.
But the idea of a comprehensive, national database, built and maintained
by the best people in their fields will wither.
The belief that Canadians can work together, with the government
providing a common forum, will wane.
A promising experiment will die.
And the government will look for another non-essential program to cut.



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