HERE'S TO HEALTH

Fisher, Anne M.

Here's to Health By Anne M. Fisher THE doctor's verdict, "Hospitalization necessary," frequently causes a major crisis for the family budget. Despite all protestations of the American Medical...

...Coverage depends upon prior payment of the hospitalization tax, which with few exceptions is required of all persons who have lived in the province for six months...
...X-ray and radium treatments, and physiotherapy...
...The first requirement was that the municipal government itself must express a desire for a health region...
...Recommendations include more adequate facilities at key hospitals strategically located throughout the province—the larger district hospitals to provide smaller units with diagnosis, treatment, teaching, and administrative services...
...However, it is also popular with the people in the area...
...Broadening the health program to include medical care as well as hospitalization means moving into the field of unpredictable human reactions...
...The patient receives ward accommodations with general nursing care, special diets, use of operating and case rooms, surgical dressings and casts, most drugs and medicines in general use, blood plasma, anesthetic agents...
...During the first year of operation, administration costs were $597,505 or 7.9 per cent of total expenditures...
...A blood transfusion, special X-ray treatments, various laboratory tests, and expensive new medicines were necessary...
...The stumbling block here was that many rural areas needing hospital facilities could not finance them...
...The progress that Saskatchewan has made in giving everyone the "right to good health" is a bright and shining achievement in the gloom of a world devoting tremendous energies and wealth to potential destruction...
...The CCF spent two years laying the overall foundation...
...if relieved of this expense, the family would be better able to pay the doctor bill...
...Additional expenses such as laboratory services, X-rays, drugs, and anesthetics often hike the bill up to about $30 a day...
...When the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (socialist party) was swept into office in 1944 with 47 of the 55 seats in the legislature, Premier T. C. Douglas, who was also minister of public health, told the "people of that province: "Everyone in Saskatchewan, irrespective of his ability to pay, has the right to good health...
...In addition to the two full-time and seven part-time mental health clinics which provide diagnostic and consultative service to physicians, there are seven teacher-psychologists who work with school teachers...
...By 1950 this had been reduced to 4.6 per cent, a notable achievement in which the Province's highly efficient Budget Bureau played a leading role...
...The hospital bed ratio rose from 3.9 per 1,000 population in 1944 to 6.3 in 1951...
...The provincial government assumed two-thirds of the cost...
...The method by which the regions were to be established was in line with the determination of the CCF to build from the grass roots in a truly democratic manner...
...The number of physicians in active practice in the province increased by about 30 per cent—an indication that the doctors must have approved of the hospitalization insurance plan inaugurated in 1947...
...Had he been a resident of Saskatchewan, his $10 yearly hospitalization tax would have entitled him to complete hospital care...
...Records show that since the major cost factor has been eliminated, more persons are seeking the early diagnosis which is so vital for successful treatment of cancer...
...Statistics show that surgeon's and physician's bills make up only one-fourth of total medical costs...
...Despite all protestations of the American Medical Association against compulsory insurance plans, people everywhere are hunting for a sound solution to the high cost of hospitalization...
...A friend recently underwent an emergency operation which required hospitalization for almost a month...
...On New Year's Day 1947 the first hospital insurance plan of its kind in North America went smoothly into operation...
...Saskatchewan is in the vanguard in the fight against modern man's most terrifying killer...
...When given the green light, the municipal councils elected representatives to the district health council, and through these councils to the Regional Board of Health...
...Since then it has covered between 96 and 97 per cent of the eligible population...
...In 1948 a $200,000 cancer clinic, with the finest of modern equipment, was opened in a new wing of the Grey Nuns' Hospital in Regina...
...Quietly and resolutely the CCF government went to work to transform the words "right to good health" into substance...
...This is the motivating principle behind the Saskatchewan Government's health program...
...otherwise all his costs for hospitalization, diagnosis, and treatment are paid by the Plan...
...This tax is $10 a year for adults...
...Premier Douglas said in his foreword to the 1952 Progress Report: "People can only become partners in a common effort if they know what is being done and what role they are expected to play in advancing the best interests of the province...
...Thus has our good neighbor to the north gone about solving the problem which has stirred up violent disagreements on our side of the border...
...To overcome this, grants were made available to aid in the construction of well-equipped hospitals...
...From the outset, the CCF government made available to all residents of the province free cancer diagnosis and treatment...
...Douglas, as Premier and Minister of Health, received a salary of only $6,500 a year...
...Saskatchewan is also developing an advanced program for basic research into the nature and cause of mental disorders...
...Small wonder the program was popular with the doctors...
...When a patient leaves the hospital he is handed a bill marked "Paid in Full...
...Dire predictions were made that the financial structure of the province would be wrecked if the CCF really carried out its campaign pledges like the hospitalization plan...
...The medical health officer became the executive officer of the Board...
...II The CCF researchers found that when prolonged illness strikes it is often the hospital bill, not the doctor's bill, that wipes out the savings of middle-income families...
...Ill Now in its sixth year, the Hospital Plan has paid hospital bills for over a million persons at a cost of around $53,000,000, and is proving to be financially sound...
...A private room costs $17 to $22 a day, a semi-private room $16, and the ward rate ranges down from $15.50 to $14.50...
...Dental programs for children have been started in four of the Health Regions with assistance from the provincial government...
...Still, most hospitals are unable to make ends meet without contributions...
...Old age and blind pensioners and recipients of mothers' allowances and their dependents are also entitled, in addition to free hospitalization, to all necessary medical, drug, dental, and optical services, with certain exceptions such as the payment of 20 per cent of the cost of most drugs...
...As a first objective, before any plan could be put into operation, the hospital bed capacity had to be greatly increased...
...The CCF government makes it a point to let the people of the province know what is being done and planned...
...This entitles every person to unlimited hospital care, provided there is medical necessity...
...If it is discovered at the clinic that no cancer is present, the patient is charged a nominal fee of $10...
...he was obliged to cash his life savings in Defense Bonds...
...Hospitalization costs in the city where I live on the West Coast probably represent the national average...
...Looking ahead 20 years, the Saskatchewan government has adopted the "Master Plan" recommended by the Health Survey Committee for the improvement and integration of its hospital facilities...
...Thereafter local communities forged ahead in improving and increasing hospital facilities without fear of a deficit...
...The Health Services Act tentatively planned for 14 Health Regions...
...Some hospitals require a week's payment in advance and will not release the patient until the bill is paid in full...
...This committee was made up of men and women receiving as well as providing health services...
...According to the AMA it cost the nation's general hospitals $341,521,000 more to care for patients in 1950 than they received from their patients...
...Public health nurses and social workers aid in the rehabilitation of discharged mental patients, and the Saskatchewan Training School provides care and training for mental defectives...
...No patient is admitted unless sent by a doctor who has found symptoms indicating the possibility of cancer...
...Maybe it was the common sense way they went about it— step by step—that won the confidence of the voters...
...The Swift Current program, established in 1946, originally employed approximately 25 doctors at an average salary of $16,000...
...The first task of the health region was the provision of basic public health services throughout the rural areas comparable to similar services in cities...
...Two major problems were tackled simultaneously: improving the quality of health services and determining methods of financing the program...
...Administration costs have been reduced by more than a third since 1947...
...All residents in Saskatchewan receive free treatment for mental illness, cancer, polio, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases...
...Still in the experimental stage, it should provide a good field for study by those who would like to put a blue-print plan for compulsory medical care into operation overnight...
...To date only the Swift Current Health Region has attempted the medical care program in addition to hospitalization...
...Saskatchewan is now well along the road to the goal expounded by Premier Douglas eight years ago...
...The hospital bill piled up day by day to a total of almost $1,000...
...Under the broad program for treatment and rehabilitation, many patients have been able to resume a normal way of life...
...While it is true that the hospitalization tax does not finance the whole program and the difference is made up from other sources, nevertheless Saskatchewan's gross debt has been reduced from $238,172,000 in 1944 to $174,931,000 in 1951—a reduction of 27 per cent...
...Its accomplishments set a pattern which might well show us in the United States the way to wipe out the dread of hospital bills...
...By 1945 the Saskatchewan government had authorized grants for 22 rural hospitals...
...There is a hopeful clue to the north of us: the province of Saskatchewan in Canada is well on its way toward finding that solution in a manner satisfactory to doctors as well as patients and voters...
...Municipal taxes are less than in other western provinces, while at the same time grants to municipal governments have been greatly increased...
...the maximum for a family, even if there are a dozen children, is only $30 a year...
...The voters undoubtedly approved of the programs initiated by the CCF and returned the party to power in 1948 and again in 1952...
...It is the duty of a government to give an account of its stewardship to the people to whom it is responsible...

Vol. 17 • August 1953 • No. 8


 
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