Latest posts (RSS 2.0)The ever-controversial Newfoundland premier Danny Williams is in the news again; this time for slipping across the border to have heart surgery that he apparently could not get in his own country. Mr. Williams is currently in recovery in an unspecified location.
The press has fumed for almost a week over the debate of whether Mr. Williams was innocent in seeking the best treatment for his health condition. It doesn’t help that the American media is adding insult to injury (no pun intended) by using Mr. Williams as a prime example of the failures of public health care.
On the subject of Mr. Williams’ choice and the debate that has ensued, CBC commentator Rex Murphy last night quipped, “It’s his life and it’s his business.” He went on to criticize the ‘personal is political’ notion that has seeped into our discussion of Mr. Williams’ actions.
I normally agree with Rex Murphy on most things and I too believe that the division between the personal and the political must exist. But on this matter, the anger surrounding Mr. Williams’ use of private providers south of the border is justified.
I don’t believe Mr. Williams’s choice itself should be a target by privatization opposers because the surgery he required may have only been available in the U.S. And as someone who could obviously pay a significant sum of money to receive private care, it’s probably better that he chose to have his surgery somewhere else rather than add himself to the ever-growing list of patients in our exhausted public system. With him taken care of elsewhere, that’s one fewer patient we have to worry about on our side.
But Mr. Williams had to know that Canadians would be angry that he was about to become the poster boy of public health care’s failure. He is, after all, the man who trumpeted the “Anything But Conservative” campaign in the last federal election. Perhaps that was just a vendetta against Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but surely he’s not one we’d expect to advocate open-mindedness towards private health care.
If we are to allocate our resources based on need rather than ability to to pay, as our health care system does, then Mr. Williams made the right choice. Instead of clogging up our sytem, Mr. Williams went elsewhere and let those who rely on the public system to be served. How much worse would it have been if someone on welfare was competing for OR time when Mr. Williams could easily afford to step aside and go to a private hospital?
Make no mistake, I am thoroughly opposed to privatization, but I’m also pragmatic. The fact is our public system is overcapacitated and the easiest way to fill in the gaps is to bring in private providers. Check out my report in the Journal from December to see how likely privatization is about to happen.
Mr. Williams has a lot of explaining to do when he gets back - an unfortunate predicament for someone who just had heart surgery. Either he’s going to have to make his surgery into a motivation for improving the public system or he’s going to have to face the wrath of Canadians as they point to his surgery as a signal for the privatization that’s going to creep into our health care system. Mr. Williams may have made the right choice to ensure the security of his health, but you’d be foolish to believe that this surgery was not political.
