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March 26, 2014

The Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) will launch a national day of action on Monday, March 31 to kick off a campaign for a new Health Accord. Events are being organized in more than 40 communities across Canada, including a 12 noon rally outside Sarnia-Lambton MP Patricia Davidson's Sarnia constituency office, at 1000 Finch Dr. “We are sounding the alarm to alert Canadians to the fact the Harper government is not providing federal leadership in health care. This will lead to a fragmentation of services across the country, and access to care will depend on where you live and your ability to pay,” says CHC executive director Michael McBane. The CHC will follow up the day of action with a Medicare Tour, visiting eight cities across the country and meeting with citizens at community events, public forums, and workshops. Meanwhile, Sarnia-Lambton Health Coalition (SLHC) president Arlene Patterson will be at the Petrolia Post Office on Friday, March 28 with Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) campaign ballots, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Patterson says she has delivered more than 1,300 ballots in Sarnia, Corunna, Petrolia, and Brigden and is distributing more.

Mar 28, 2014

The Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) will launch a national day of action March 31st to kick off a campaign for a new Health Accord. Events are organized in over 40 communities across Canada, including a luncheon in Ottawa with Dr. Jeff Turnbull - Past-President of the Canadian Medical Association, and a concert in Toronto with several Canadian artists - including Shirley Douglas. "We are sounding the alarm to alert Canadians to the fact that the Harper government is not providing federal leadership in health care. This will lead to a fragmentation of services across the country, and access to care will depend on where you live and your ability to pay," says Michael McBane, Executive Director of the CHC. The Canadian Health Coalition will follow up the day of action with a Medicare Tour, visiting eight cities across the country and meeting with citizens at community events, public forums, and workshops. The tour features Alex Himelfarb, former Clerk of the Privy Council to three prime ministers, and Wendell Potter, former VP of Communications for Cigna, one of the largest American health insurers.

March 25, 2014

OTTAWA – The Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) will launch a national day of action March 31st to kick off a campaign for a new Health Accord. Events are organized in 40 communities across Canada, including a luncheon in Ottawa with Dr. Jeff Turnbull – Past-President of the Canadian Medical Association, and a concert in Toronto with many Canadian artists – including Shirley Douglas. “We are sounding the alarm to alert Canadians to the fact that the Harper government is not providing federal leadership in health care. This will lead to a fragmentation of services across the country, and access to care will depend on where you live and your ability to pay,” says Michael McBane, Executive Director of the CHC. The Canadian Health Coalition will follow up the day of action with a Medicare Tour, visiting eight cities across the country and meeting with citizens at community events, public forums, and workshops. The tour features Alex Himelfarb, former Clerk of the Privy Council to three prime ministers, and Wendell Potter, former VP of Communications for Cigna, one of the largest American health insurers. For more information click here and here. For a list of national events occurring on March 31st click here.

Author(s):  Adrienne Silnicki Joel Lexchin Julie White Keith Newman

February 2, 2015 The Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) was founded in 1979 as a public advocacy organization dedicated to the preservation and improvement of medicare. It brings together organizations representing nurses, health care workers, seniors, churches, trade unions, anti-poverty groups and women, as well as affiliated coalitions in nine provinces and two territories. The CHC has supported a universal public pharmacare plan since its inception, because prescription drugs are an essential part of health care and should be provided, like doctors and hospitals, to all Canadians as part of our public health care system.

The problems Currently, prescription drugs are provided in a partial and unfair manner, to the detriment of our health and at enormous cost. With prescription drugs left out of our national medicare plan, we have a patchwork of provincial and territorial plans that cover less than half the population. Sometimes these plans cover only seniors, those on social assistance, and certain illnesses. In a few cases, people pay for drugs based on an income assessment. More than half the population is outside any public arrangement and must rely on private insurance, usually through a wide variety of workplace plans. Commonly workers contribute to the cost of these private plans, by paying towards the insurance premiums and by paying co-pays at the pharmacy counter. Since these plans are attached to the workplace, they are unreliable; if you change jobs, get laid off or retire, your drug plan usually disappears. The federal government pays a mere 2% of total drug costs, covering only specific groups such as the military, veterans and First Nations.

Orleans Urgent Care

a walk-in clinic on steroids

“Urgent care, if done properly and not affiliated with a public facility — because costs go up — in the right spots, where there are crowded emergency departments and difficulty accessing care, they could fill the gap.”

Mon Oct 17 2016

TORONTO, Oct. 16, 2016 /CNW/ - On Monday, October 17thCanada's provincial health ministers are gathering in Toronto to begin in-person negotiations on a new health accord. On October 18th, the Federal Health Minister will join them. Representatives from the Canadian and Ontario Health Coalitions, Council of Canadians, and Canadian Doctors for Medicare will be holding a media conference outside the King Edward Hotel (where the health ministers will be meeting) on Monday, October 17th, at 10:30am. The organizations want to see an Accord which will protect, strengthen and expand public health care. What: Media conference by public health care advocates on the new health accord and the health ministers' meeting. When: Monday, October 17th, 10:30am Where: King Edward Hotel, Toronto (37 King Street E.) Who: The Canadian Health Coalition, Ontario Health Coalition, Canadian Doctors for Medicare, and Council of Canadians Spokespersons include:

Natalie Mehra, Executive Director, Ontario Health Coalition & Board member of the Canadian Health Coalition Dr. Ritika Goel, Canadian Doctors for Medicare Michael Butler, Health Care Campaigner, Council of Canadians The Canadian Health Coalition is a public advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and improvement of Medicare. You can learn more about our work at healthcoalition.ca( (www.healthcoalition.ca») ). Facebook: CanadianHealthCoalition( (www.facebook.com») ) Twitter: @healthcoalition( (www.twitter.com») ) SOURCE Canadian Health Coalition

As of June 30th refugees in Canada will be cut off access to treatment for chronic diseases including hypertension, angina, diabetes, high cholesterol, and lung disease.

“The changes are being justified using three flawed arguments. First, we are told that refugees are abusing our health care system. The reality is the exact opposite. Our challenge as physicians is to engage vulnerable people with the health care system, especially prevention and primary care, not turn them away. I have never met a refugee who came to Canada because they wanted better health care. In comparison to starvation, torture, and rape, getting vision care is never the motivation. Second, they say they are doing this for public safety. Actually, they are endangering public safety by denying basic health care services. People only pose a risk to the public if they are not properly engaged in health care. For example, if a person with tuberculosis is only offered care after they are spitting blood, they will have already infected others. Third, the Minister claims this is about saving taxpayers money. When you stop providing preventive care you wind up with repeated emergency room visits and preventable hospitalizations that cost a lot more money,” said Dr. Mark Tyndall, Head of Infectious Diseases at the Ottawa Hospital and Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa.

The Canadian Heath Coalition sees the cuts to refugee health care services as part of a broader pattern emerging from the recent federal budget. Other cuts that affect the health of vulnerable Canadians include: mental health services for soldiers at Petawawa; systematic spending cuts to aboriginal health programs; the elimination of Health Canada’s Bureau of Food Safety Assessment and food safety inspection at the CFIA.

The common elements of reform include organizing physicians into groups with shared responsibilities, inter-professional teams, electronic health records, changes to physician reimbursement, incentive and bonus payments for certain services, after-hours coverage requirements, and telehealth and teletriage services.

Ontario's initiatives have been substantially different from those of other provinces in the scope, size of investment and structural changes that have been implemented.

These models have the same requirements for evening and weekend clinics, and for their physicians to be on call to an after-hours, nurse-led teletriage service.

Fort Smith Northern Journal Tue Apr 22 2014

With the expiration of the 2004 Health Accord creating a wave of protest across the country this month, NWT residents added their voice to the fray of concerns about medicare last Wednesday at a presentation organized in Yellowknife by Alternatives North and the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC). The presentation was one of 42 events being held across Canada in protest of the Mar. 31 expiry of the 10 year-old deal that saw $41 billion in federal transfers to the provinces, the absence of which organizers say is triggering a collapse of universal health care. The Health Accord was created in 2004 as additional federal spending on health care tied to provincial promises to reduce wait times and improve services. Defenders say it set national standards for medicare, prescription drug plans and home care, among others.

April 21, 2014

With the expiration of the 2004 Health Accord creating a wave of protest across the country this month, NWT residents added their voice to the fray of concerns about medicare last Wednesday at a presentation organized in Yellowknife by Alternatives North and the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC). The presentation was one of 42 events being held across Canada in protest of the Mar. 31 expiry of the 10 year-old deal that saw $41 billion in federal transfers to the provinces, the absence of which organizers say is triggering a collapse of universal health care.

May. 22 '15

This week supporters of our national affilate, the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC), across the country are meeting with their MPs to let them know that health care will be a vote-deciding issue in the upcoming Federal Election. We'd like to offer you the opportunity to participate in this lobby too! 

Sep 15, 2015

Following decades of cuts to health care transfers by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, CUPE members want to see innovative ideas and real commitments to our health care system.