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B.C. tops in health care, reports find
The national Cancer Advocacy Coalition says province has the best access in Canada to anti-cancer drugs
Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, February 01, 2006Two new reports say Canadians looking for the healthiest place to live in the country, where access to lifesaving cancer drugs ranks No. 1 need only take out one prescription: Live in British Columbia.
In its survey of "overall health performance," a measure of individual health and use of Canada's medicare system, B.C. ranks first, the Conference Board of Canada concludes in a report to be released today.
And in another piece of good health news for the province, the national Cancer Advocacy Coalition, which measured access to 20 new anti-cancer drugs -- 15 of which cost more than $20,000 per treatment -- concluded that B.C. has the best-funded and fastest access to such drugs.
B.C. Health Minister George Abbott
Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun file
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"British Columbia should be tremendously proud of their cancer care, whether it's in diagnosis, prevention or treatment or research," said B.C. Health Minister George Abbott.
"I would have to say this a very good day. I'm pleased, gratified, proud, that we've achieved this."
Yet the province isn't without its downside when it comes to health care, the Conference Board of Canada report says.
Despite living in what statisticians find is the country's most salubrious province, British Columbians interviewed during the reign of the provincial Liberal government also seem to be the most irked by the day-to-day delivery of health care.
"British Columbia was the top provincial performer overall on health indicators, yet it still had some of the lowest patient satisfaction scores in the country," the Conference Board notes in its report, which weighs longevity statistics with surveys of Canadians' opinions of their experiences in trips to the doctor's office, emergency rooms and hospital wards.
"These apparently contradictory findings [about B.C.] bring into question the relationship between satisfaction rates and overall health services," says the nonpartisan conference board. "Why are British Columbia's patient satisfaction scores low when it appears to have the best overall health performance in the country? It will take considerable research and effort to answer this question."
The B.C. New Democratic Party thinks it has some of the answers. Its health-care critic, David Cubberly, maintained that much of the statistical good news being unveiled today is likely the result of British Columbians' healthy life-style, past NDP governments supporting medicare and the NDP policies that opened up the door to affordable drugs, particularly those for cancer.
"I read the conference board's report as being devastating news for the Liberal government," Cubberly said. "The health care system is in decline in the opinion of the public.
"The conference board study shows dissatisfaction with the system."
The Liberal government, however, is trying to elevate the health care debate above politics.
"I wouldn't claim it as any political victory," Abbott said.
Still, there will be a government event today that will let him bask in the good news.
Premier Gordon Campbell, with Abbott by his side, will be announcing a broad plan to deal with one of the higher-profile problems within the provincial health care system: long waiting lists for knee and hip replacements, a growing concern with an aging population in a province that attracts many of Canada's retirees.
