September 28, 2005
“Third Way” turning into private insurance?
Health Minister Iris Evans made it public last week that the government is looking for proposals on the feasibility of bringing in private insurance plans to cover a wide range of health services in the province.
The government’s “Request for Proposals” is looking for a plan “to defray the “front-end” costs of shifting all or part of the health services described in the schemes from a publicly funded approach to an insurance-based funding approach.”
“The government is looking to pay private insurance companies to plan how to privatize our public health care system,” says UNA President Heather Smith. “We can save them a lot of money, Albertans can tell them right away that making Alberta families pay private insurance premiums to cover health costs is NOT a feasible option. Nobody wants to go back to the bad old days of private insurance healthcare,” she said.
The government is looking for insurance schemes to “finance the provision of prescription drugs; continuing care; supplemental health products and services; and non-emergency health care.” According to Friends of Medicare spokesperson Harvey Voogd.
“It looks like the Third Way is about a 3-tier health care insurance system for Albertans… The lowest tier would be the public system available to every Albertan. The second tier would be a co-pay scheme that will only be available by purchasing insurance. The third tier would be the Cadillac system where the individual pays the full cost of the insurance.”
Joint Committee settles seniority issues
The UNA/Health Regions Joint Committee has issued an agreed-upon interpretation of the provincial agreement that resolves a potential confusion in Seniority provisions. The provincial 2003-2007 Collective Agreement for the first time provides for portability of seniority from other Employers “with the same recognition clause in their agreements.”
The confusion came up over the phrase “upon voluntary termination of employment with the previous Employer.” There was confusion about how periods of casual employment would affect seniority. Articles 12.01 and Article 12.06 together created the confusion about how to interpret Seniority.
The new joint interpretation says “Seniority is to be administered such that when an employee is hired into a regular or temporary position, all periods of prior casual service, with previous or current employers be recognized for purposes of establishing the seniority date – provided that there was not a break in continuous service of more than six months.”
Resolves Transportation questions
The UNA/Health Regions Joint Committee has also resolved outstanding interpretation questions on transportation provisions in the provincial Collective Agreement. How to pay the $130 monthly car allowances (new Article 10.05) was a main topic. The Committee recently released a joint statement indicating that Employers have to give 90 days notice if they no longer require a nurse to use his or her personal vehicle. This resolves several grievances. Nurses who had been given less notice will have to be paid the difference up to 90 days.
Employers can pay the car allowance on a monthly, bi-weekly or hourly ($0.81/hour) basis.
The joint statement also clears up the car allowance terms for Part-time and casual Employees who are required to use a personal vehicle.
Nurses who are asked to commute to alternate locations than their usual worksite at the start or end of their shift now receive mileage for the extra distance they have to drive. If the commute is more than 20 kilometres, they must be paid mileage for the entire difference between their regular commute and the commute to and/or from the alternate location. This resolves interpretation issues around Article 10.07, which also had grievances outstanding.
Joint Statements on Senority and Transportation
See your Local Executive, the UNA website – www.una.ab.ca – or UNA Net for a copy of the complete Joint Statements.
The Joint Committee was created in the 2001 provincial Collective Agreement to work to resolve interpretation issues. Representatives from the Health Regions –through the Health Boards of Alberta Services (HBA)– and from UNA meet regularly on issues in administering the Agreeement. The Committee has resolved a number of issues, like eligibility for education allowances, and reduced the need for a long and costly arbitration process.
Class action suit on LTC fee hike
The Elder Advocates of Alberta have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 13,000 seniors across Alberta, alleging that rent hikes of more than 40 per cent imposed by the province’s nine health authorities in 2003 were unjustified.
They also claim that the government made “untrue or inaccurate” statements when it said the $58 million generated by the fee increase would allow continuing care facilities to “improve the living environment of its class members.”
The lawsuit also alleges the higher accommodation fees helped subsidize health-care costs in nursing homes.
“As a result, the class members, by paying a higher accommodation charge, in effect subsidized the health-care costs, which are the responsibility of the Crown,” the statement of claim alleges.
37% of Albertans say they’ve experienced a medical error
A survey by the Health Quality Council of Alberta has found that 37% of Albertans say they, or a family member, has experienced a preventable medical error at some point in their lives while receiving a service within Alberta’s health system. The findings came from the Health Quality Council’s Alberta Patient Safety Survey.
Albertans identified “Not enough nurses in hospitals” and “overwork, stress or fatigue” as two of the top four possible causes for errors. They also cited not working as a team and doctors not having enough time with patients as the other two top causes.
The Council also says Albertans want mandatory reporting of all errors, a subject it is also currently looking at.
The Council’s survey asked for Albertans’ perceptions of and actual experiences with medical errors, including specific details about the circumstances surrounding experienced errors. Medical errors are defined as mistakes made during medical care that result in serious harm such as death, disability or additional prolonged treatment.
In releasing the survey findings, Health Quality Council Chief Executive Officer Dr. John Cowell said, “While the survey has found that the majority of Albertans perceive the health system to be safe, the results also suggest that Albertans have some concerns when it comes to patient safety.”
Ontarians plan to fight against P3 hospital privatization
The Liberal government has officially announced its intention to move forward with 5 privatized P3 hospitals. The total known cost of McGuinty’s privatized P3 hospital program now stands at $3.3 billion.
In August official announcements were made confirming P3 hospital redevelopments for the following communities:
• Belleville
• Mississauga - Credit Valley Hospital
• North Bay
• Ottawa - Montfort Hospital
• Sault Ste. Marie - Plummer Memorial & Sault Ste. Marie Hospitals
Ontario Health Coalition says the privatized hospitals are a serious threat to the comprehensiveness and public control of our health system.
Premier Dalton McGuinty campaigned explicitly against P3 hospitals in the election.
The Ontario Health Coalition will hold plebiscites to levy political pressure in each community under threat of hospital privatization through P3s”, said Natalie Mehra, coalition coordinator. “We conducted the first plebiscite in St. Catharines early this summer in which over 12,000 people voted against the privatization of the new hospital.”
Calgary review shows LTC below par
The Calgary Health Region’s own study of 40 long-term care centres showed that 32 facilities only partially met or didn’t meet criteria on standards for medication delivery. Twenty-five of the facilities only partially met the standards for resident care plans. According to a report in the Calgary Herald, the Calgary Region spokesperson said, “The majority of our care centres either partially or totally met criteria.”
But according to the same article Lynda Jonson, the RN from Hinton who toured facilities around the province earlier this year, said “Only eight met the criteria,” she said. “That’s terrible.”
Friends of Medicare spokesperson Harvey Voogd called on the Capital Health Region to also review its facilities. “The Auditor General of Alberta found that 31% of the basic standards relating to care were not met by the facilities his staff visited,” he said. “In light of the Auditor General’s findings and the Calgary Health Region review, residents of the Capital Health Region deserve to know the current performance of local long-term care centres.”
On the Light Side
A nurse was leaving the hospital one evening when she found the doctor standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.
“Listen”, said the doctor, “this is important and my assistant has left. Can you make this thing work?”
“Certainly”, said the nurse, flattered that the doctor had asked her for help.
She turned the machine on, inserted the paper and pressed the start button.
“Excellent! Excellent!” said the doctor as his paper disappeared inside the machine.
“I need two copies of that.”
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