Health minister Allan Rock last week conceded that rural Canada is the poor country cousin in a two-tiered medicare system.
He then announced several measures to try to improve it.
Rock told a news conference at Chesterville, a small community southeast of Ottawa, that when he became health minister after the last election, he began to assess the state of medicare.
“I quickly became convinced that the real concern about two-tiered medicine in Canada is not between the rich and the poor, not between the haves and have nots,” said the minister.
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“The real issue of two-tiered medicine in Canada is between rural and urban Canadians.”
He announced what he said was the beginning of steps to improve rural health, following on the appointment almost two years ago of a Health Canada executive director for rural health issues.
Rock said he will create a minister’s advisory council on rural health and set aside an $11 million, two-year fund for rural health enhancement.
He said the money will be used to “enhance delivery of primary care in rural communities (and for) attracting medical professionals.”
Applications for pilot projects must be sent to Health Canada by Sept. 30, with an emphasis on proposals to create pilot projects that explore innovative ways to deliver medical care and attract caregivers.
Money also will be available for projects that assess rural health patterns and the physical causes of higher disease and accident rates in rural and remote areas of the country.
And he announced the rural component of an $80-million, two-year health infrastructure program that will allow some rural and remote patients to be treated through the benefits of long-distance telemedicine.
During the news conference, Rock and a bevy of other federal Liberals and rural health advocates watched the results of a televised remote ultra-sound being performed on a pregnant patient in northern Alberta by medical specialists 3.5 hours away.
Rock said this is the kind of high-tech medicine that can improve medical services in rural Canada.
The principles of medicare include “equal access to quality health care” wherever Canadians live, he said.
“But ladies and gentlemen, we are not following through on that promise when it comes to rural health care.”
Last week, he received a final report from a committee of Liberal caucus urging that the federal government start to correct the urban-rural health-care gap.
