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It's Ours, Isn't It?
Welcome to the blog.
One of the reasons for this blog and website is to inspire a nationwide discussion by Canadians about healthcare. I hope you will be part of it. I sincerely invite you. I am calling this first blog,“It’s ours, isn't it?”
I am talking about our healthcare system. For more than 20 years, our healthcare system has been going downhill and the wagon is not slowing down. And for most of those same 20 years, Canadians have rated healthcare as our number one concern according to national surveys. Yet nothing changes. How is it that we have this contradiction? I hope you will share your answer. Here is mine:
Follow up:
I don't think that we really believe that the system is ours – really ours. You know, the kind of “ours” that means you get to do stuff with it, like have real authority, make decisions, change policies or even change management. Have you ever heard of a Canadian or group of Canadians who could propose a motion for healthcare, get it seconded and have it voted on? For anyone needing an answer, it is a definite “no”. So if one has no authority or decision-making power over something, does one really own it?
What other indicators could we use to determine ownership? Well, we could look to see who the spokespeople are. I know what you are thinking. Whether you live in Iqaluit or St. John’s or Victoria, you are recalling the folks you’ve heard discussing healthcare in the media. Correct me if I am wrong, but they fall into two chatty groups: The first is the politicians and the second is the stakeholders (docs, nurses, administrators, unions). These are the folks who do the talking for and about healthcare. But the most important stakeholder is absent. That’s you and me, the citizens. And we have so much to contribute. It’s time to check what we have been thinking and how we have been thinking. Let’s start now.
"If you always think what you have always thought,
And if you always do what you have always done,
You will always get what you have always got.
If there is no change, there is no change".
Author unknown
Isn’t it time for a reality check about our thinking on healthcare? I say it’s ours; really ours.
© Janet Walker
January 6, 2009
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