As many of you know, public-private "partnerships" are one of the
cornerstones of the Health Services Restructuring Commission, and of the
Policy Group on Health Reform (1996), on grounds of improved "efficiency",
"client satisfaction", etc.

Next week, a 2day conference to be held at the Hotel Inter-Continental (Mon
& Tues Feb 10 & 11; 220 Bloor Street West, Toronto), organized by an outfit
called "The Canadian Institute", has been convened to celebrate such
initiatives in the privatization of health care, and to help attendees find
out how they can 'cash in' on the new business 'opportunities' this will
create. Key speakers from Ernst and Young Healthcare Consulting, Manulife
Financial, Hoffmann-LaRoche, Searle Canada, Magna International are
highlighted in the conference program, as is Leo-Paul Landry (CMA) and
Andrew Szende (Acting ADM, Institutional Health, Ontario Ministry of
Health). The conference theme is "Thrive and survive in the '90s and beyond
with public-private partnerships in healthcare". Billed as being of
particular interest to "hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacists,
health professionals and other health care providers", in bold letters the
conference flyer announces that as a registrant "you will learn how you can
benefit from the shift to the private sector as client-payor; how to assess
what your core competencies are... and what should be outsourced; how and
why government is supporting managed health care... and much more"!

I concede there may be some merits to some private sector involvement, but
I'm skeptical of much of the rhetoric of "win-win partnerships", and I'm
troubled by the openness with which the dismantling of the welfare state is
being discussed and celebrated.  From what I've heard, a number of labour
and social justice organizations are planning protests in conjunction with
the conference.

This seems all the more disturbing in the light of the revelations from a
hospital-based physician two weeks ago about backroom administration
meetings involving the buying and selling of proceedures in order to
balance the books, and clear cases of the mismanagement or refusal of care
in order to balance short-term accounts.  Is US-style "managed care" really
what we want here?



---------------------------------------
Blake D. Poland
Department of Behavioural Science
Faculty of Medicine, McMurrich Building
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
Canada   M5S 1A8

tel: 416-978-7542; fax: 416-978-2087
email: [log in to unmask]