“The problems are in danger of overwhelming our health service”

The issue of preventative measures in health care, and rising costs to the BC medical system, has generated more comment.  I am not at liberty to disclose the name of the person who has provided the following, however they are well able to make the Guest Comments which follow:

Chronic health problems are indeed a very significant health care problem.  I am not surprised at the comments of Ms. Kaminski.

The 2 problems are firstly dealing with the present situation and at the same time the issue of prevention. At present we have illnesses such as Aides, Tuberculosis and Diabetes all needing life long or extensive drug therapy.   All Transplant patients go on anti-rejection drugs indefinitely.

Will these health care suggestions be popular??

Barbara Kaminsky is the Chairperson of the BC Healthy Living Alliance ... as well as being the CEO of the BC and Yukon Chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society. I am going to start from the premise that she is well qualified to be in both of these positions, and therefore comments that she makes should be seriously considered.

That's why I found an article she had in the Vancouver Sun on Monday January 17^th of interest – the story was entitled, “Leadership is the key to decrease prevention.”

In this story she started of with a comment that pretty much all of us would agree on, that is that British Columbian's have health care pretty much at the top of our list of things important to us – in terms if services delivered by the government.

Were you aware that one third of BC's population, that have chronic disease, take up 80% of the costs of Pharmacare, payments to doctors, and hospital costs? -- I certainly wasn't until I read this article. With couples having less children, our population as a whole is ageing, which could have a serious effect on not only health care, but all services delivered by government.