Op-Ed About Canadian Health System
Remembering OHIP
In response to Betsy P. Chapman’s May 23 op-ed on health care reform: I remember many things about growing up Canadian, but an ineffectual and inaccessible health care system is not one of them. In fact, I remember almost nothing about the health care system offered free of charge to every resident of the province by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), except that it wove itself into the fabric of my life as a strong, invisible thread. Its reliability and availability was a given.
When I or one of my four siblings needed medical attention, there was never any thought of money - payments or co-payments. My mother called to make an appointment with the family physician whose office was across the street. And we went, usually that day or the next, depending on how serious the ailment. When we arrived at the office, we met with no army of receptionists and office workers as there are here in Maine, positioned to do the work of sustaining the weighty bureaucracy put into place so that the HMO system to function. Our doctor’s nurse-wife simply waved her hand as we showed her our OHIP cards and ushered us in.
I don’t remember ever waiting very long to see the doctor, and when I did, he didn’t asked me whether it was a “sick” visit or a “well” visit, but simply what it was that I needed from him. And he stayed with me as long as was needed to give it. The relationship went on like this for 20 years. My parents aged with him, and his children grew up as we did.
In my recent times, the family practice has been eclipsed, to a large extent, by the walk-in clinic. Conveniently located in shopping malls or plazas, these clinics remain open to serve the public, free of charge, seven days a week, usually 12 hours a day. Again, the simple presentation of an OHIP card gives access to service which is prompt, efficient, and dependable. You can arrange to see the same doctor too. All you need to do is check his or her schedule for that day.
Now that they are older, my parents have had need, on occasion, for greater care than a walk-in clinic can provide (though my father still visits one each week to have his blood pressure monitored). Three years ago, my father was diagnosed with kidney cancer. The specialist thought he could be saved if the affected kidney was removed. It was a matter of weeks before the successful operation took place at one of Toronto’s topnotch hospitals. At the age of 80, he walked out of the hospital completely cured, and with a bill of only five dollars, for a private telephone he had requested for his room.
These days, as I take up my landed immigrant status, I remember with nostalgia the Canadian health care system which served me so well right up into adulthood. I remember with longing its simplicity, efficiency, and freedom from the pecuniary concerns that, in my view, so compromise the current health care system in Maine, with its many health provider “businesses.” Food or medicine - for people of any age in Canada, no choice needed or needs to be made.
I believe in the reciprocity between a society and its people, a lesson I learned growing up in Canada. I grew up in what I would, without hesitation, describe as a caring society. And I believe the new health care proposal represents a step toward establishing the same kind of caring society here in Maine, a society in which healthcare is an invisible thread in the fabric of life. In my opinion, universal healthcare extended to all, free of charge, is not only a good idea, but a basic human right . Its time has come.
Dr. Sandra Hutchison is an author, lecturer and journalist residing in Orono.