HEALTH MINISTERS MEETING: Put the Heart Back in Health Care

VANCOUVER – This week public health care advocates are staging an interactive display in front of the meeting of Canada’s health ministers.

National, provincial and territorial allies of the Canadian Health Coalition are calling on the health ministers to put the heart back in health care. Advocates want to hear Ministers calling for a full national public drug plan, 25 per cent federal funding of health care with strings attached, a recommitment to public health care and the Canada Health Act, and a continuing care plan that ensures access to public home, palliative, facility based long term, and hospice care for all.

“This new government has a lot of work ahead of them,” says Canadian Health Coalition National Coordinator Adrienne Silnicki. “We’ve gone through 8 years of federal abdication from health care, now we need federal leadership and vision. It’s time to strengthen our public health care system by enforcing the Canada Health Act, contributing 25 per cent of health care costs to the provinces, and creating new and desperately needed programming like a national drug plan and a continuing care plan.”

Public health care advocates including members from the British Columbia Health Coalition, the Hospital Employees Union, the Council of Canadians, Friends of Medicare, the Canadian Health Coalition among many others will be across the street from the Ministers’ meeting (at the Fairmont Vancouver hotel) with hearts and banners carrying messages of hope for health care from people across the country.

The Canadian Health Coalition is a public advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and improvement of Medicare.

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