Nurses for Medicare was launched today by Canada’s nurses to
protect and strengthen medicare. With less than two weeks to go in the federal election, Nurses
for Medicare is calling on the country’s 300,000 plus nurses to speak out in support of the
publicly funded health care system.
“We share Canadians frustrations with access to health care and we are committed to working
with government and other health professionals toward implementing proven solutions, within a
publicly-funded health system,” said Kaaren Neufeld, president of the Canadian Nurses
Association. “We are however, unequivocally against increased privatization because it will put
health care out of the reach of those who need it most and would result in unequal access to
essential health services.”
According to leading organizations, private health care delivery does not reduce wait times. A
study of five Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations found
that public-sector wait times are longer in Britain and New Zealand, where both privately
financed systems and publicly funded systems are in place, than in countries offering only
publicly funded services, such as Canada and the Netherlands (Tuohy et al., 2004).*
“Nurses need to put their support for medicare on record to counter voices calling for a greater
private role in health care. For-profit private health care is neither efficient nor ethical,” said
Linda Silas, President of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, one of the founding member
organizations of Nurses for Medicare.
In an open letter to all political leaders, Nurses for Medicare called on federal, provincial and
territorial governments for a moratorium on for-profit expansion of the health system, expansion
of publicly funded, not-for-profit care to pharmacare and home care, for example, and for the
enforcement of the Canada Health Act.
Nurses for Medicare is committed to health care that is based on need and not on ability to pay.
Nurses for Medicare believe that solutions to access and sustainability challenges lie within
reforms to the current, publicly funded system such as interprofessional care, health promotion
and strategic investments in technology.
For more information about Nurses for Medicare, visit: www.nursesformedicare.ca
*Tuohy CH, Flood CM, Stabile M. How does private finance affect public health care systems? Marshaling the
evidence from OECD nations. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 2004;29(3):359–96.
