SASKATOON – The frustration in Roy Romanow’s voice is unmistakable.
More than seven years ago, the former Saskatchewan New Democrat premier produced a royal commission report on health care for a federal Liberal government that proposed, among many things, a $1.5 billion rural and remote access fund that would help improve rural health care.
“Geography is in fact a determinant of health,” he wrote in November 2002.
“People in rural and remote communities have poorer health status than Canadians who live in larger centres. Access to health care also is a problem not only because of distances but because these communities struggle to attract and keep nurses, doctors and other health care providers.”
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So what has happened in seven years? Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin negotiated a $40 billion health transfer to the provinces in response but did not set conditions on how the money can be used.
“With respect to rural and remote, I have not seen any evidence that there has been any significant progress in this area whatsoever,” Romanow said.
“With no conditions from Ottawa, in most jurisdictions votes and population concentrations dictate that the politics see that money goes into non-rural areas.”
He sees it as deadly evidence of a rural-urban divide.
Dr. Karl Stobbe, president of the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada, can vouch for that.
He practices in southwestern Ontario and teaches at McMaster University in Hamilton.
“There was a lot of hope when (the Romanow report) was tabled that it would mark a turning point, but I have seen nothing.”
According to the Romanow report, rural life expectancy can be two to three years shorter than in urban Canada.
Infant mortality rates are 40 percent higher and cancer-related deaths are significantly increased in rural areas.
A 2008 Senate agriculture committee report also flagged the issue.
“The evidence is in: rural Canadians are on average less healthy than their urban counterparts,” it said.
“While the reasons are varied, at least part of the problem stems from inadequate access to health practitioners and services.”
The federal Conservative government told the Senate committee that the concerns are being addressed through existing mechanisms within the health portfolio.
Romanow said rural Canadians have a right to equivalent services.
“The disparities between those of us who live in urban and those of us who live in rural are too important not to be addressed,” he said.
