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Results: 91 - 105 of 666
Puneet Dhillon
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Puneet Dhillon
2021-04-27 12:46
Thank you, Ms. Sidhu. This is a very important and much-needed question at this time. I'll try to answer it to the best of my capacities.
First, what I see as the solution to the problem that we Torontonians are all facing is that one barrier to accessing the services could be a lack of awareness about the resources that are present.
Another important barrier is lack of knowledge of the language, because most South Asian women who are homebound and are working at home and do not have access to any of those language instruction classes have very big barriers. Being a South Asian woman myself, I have also met many others who do not even know how to navigate with a GPS, how to connect to these resources, or even how to make a phone call, so language has become a huge barrier.
A third barrier, which has come since COVID-19, is mobility, because when we come here as immigrants, the major problem is that there is always a barrier to mobility, both from a financial point of view and physically. Sometimes South Asian women, especially Punjabi women, who want to go from here to there have to depend on their male counterparts in the family. They have to wait for them to come home from work and then for them to take them somewhere. This is one of the problems. I think awareness and education about all the resources available are the key. More connection between the community service organizations and the communities and a more diverse touch to these types of services will help us remove at least some of these barriers. This is my belief.
View Sonia Sidhu Profile
Lib. (ON)
You know quite well that many seniors in the South Asian communities have real language barriers. Do you believe they are at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing any services, such as health care services or vaccination services? What is your advice on that? How can all levels of government bridge the barrier?
Puneet Dhillon
View Puneet Dhillon Profile
Puneet Dhillon
2021-04-27 12:50
Thank you, Ms. Sidhu, for giving me an opportunity to answer this question, because seniors definitely feel kind of abandoned or alienated in a society where the language is a big barrier. We often come across senior clients who drop in or who call in because they do not understand. Sometimes, it's even worse. They do not want to pick up the phone to call. They do not know what language the phone operator on the other end will use. I think more culturally competent services and more linguistically appropriate services are required for seniors. There has definitely been a huge barrier, and in fact, there have been many cultural taboos around vaccine. There have been many myths. We try our best in our languages to get those myths resolved and to give proper answers about those myths, but still they do not reach those targeted areas in a targeted language. We need a more culturally and linguistically sensitive approach to reach out to our seniors.
Ann Collins
View Ann Collins Profile
Ann Collins
2021-04-23 14:10
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's my honour to appear before you today. My name is Dr. Ann Collins. I am a retired family physician. I taught family medicine. I ran a full-time practice. I've served with the Canadian Armed Forces, and I've worked in nursing home care. Just yesterday, I was called back into service to administer much needed vaccines to people in my rural home community.
Mr. Chair, I am honoured to appear before you at this time in the pandemic representing the physicians of Canada and the people they care for. I am joined today by my colleague, Dr. Abdo Shabah, CMA board member and emergency physician serving on the front line during the pandemic in Quebec.
As president of the Canadian Medical Association, I am gravely concerned about the state of the pandemic in Canada today. In particular, in hotspot regions where we are facing extreme circumstances, I applaud the federal government for its unrelenting leadership and unprecedented action in leading our national response.
The pandemic has been unrelenting in challenging the physicians and health providers on the front lines, and the third wave is hitting hard. The CMA is deeply concerned about the toll COVID-19 has taken on the people who will steer us out of this health crisis. Emergency doctors are working 12-hour shifts and then being required to work another four hours, day after day. Fatigue and anxiety are high, threatening burnout, yet there is no relief in sight.
Medical professionals are being trained on critical care triage protocols, which may be enacted to respond to the lack of resources. If enacted, physicians will be in the untenable position of making the difficult life-and-death decisions about who gets care and when. The moment we have dreaded and feared, when the pandemic's grip is surpassing resource capacities in some regions, is here.
The CMA implores provinces and territories to continue to act in the spirit of collaboration to ensure that our resources are deployed where they are needed. We must work together for the common good to prevent loss of life wherever possible. Some areas of risk have already benefited from the aid of resources shared by the premiers—most important today is critical care staff. To call these actions laudable is an understatement. The CMA commends the federal government for its leadership in encouraging and facilitating this deployment of national resources.
Canada's recovery is contingent on the recovery of our health system. We vigorously applaud the recent commitment of $4 billion to resolve the backlogs of the first and second waves. I cannot stress too profoundly the incredible urgency for Parliament to pass Bill C-25 without delay.
Still, more is needed. Today, five million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor or a family care team. That's 13% of the country. If our health care systems are a house, primary care is the front door. The drafts are increasing. There's no security when the front door is off its hinges.
Primary care is affordable, it fosters equity and it will be the cornerstone of health care supporting the people of Canada through and out of the pandemic. Expanding primary care will help ensure every single Canadian has access to a family doctor. The right to access health care must not be subject to our status or postal code. Every marginalized and susceptible person in Canada deserves the attention of a primary care team.
Our nation has never been in more dire need of health security. The CMA appeals to Parliament to deliver this critical health care resource. There's still time. The pandemic has exposed the weaknesses, the shortages and the lack of capacity of Canada's public health care systems. We must begin to chart the course in reimagining public health and health care. The long-term mental health impact of COVID-19 on frontline health care workers is coming. We must prepare for it.
All of this will require a commitment to increased and sustained funding from the federal government. The CMA welcomes the Prime Minister's pledge to engage the provinces and territories in a continued and collaborative plan to address the future of our health systems.
The financial commitments the federal government has made to support Canada's pandemic response are exemplary. Investments to date will improve lives. They will save lives. But there are still some missing steps that lie before us. Completing them will allow all Canadians an equitable opportunity at health security. Completing them will sustain our frontline health care workers in the fight they face today and in the care they must provide in the future.
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, let me thank the committee for the invitation to share the convictions of Canada's physicians. The CMA and its 80,000 members will be there to fully support the government in addressing the stability of Canada's health systems.
Thank you.
View Sonia Sidhu Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We know that our communities and our medical professionals are under increased stress in the third wave. My community is a hot spot of COVID-19. I want to thank all frontline medical workers, nurses and doctors who are saving Canadians every day.
My question is for Dr. Collins. We know that our government announced new supports for Ontario, including sending federal health care staff and equipment to the front lines and more. In your testimony, you referred to an additional $4 billion from the federal government going towards the Canada health transfer to help provinces get through this pandemic. What are some immediate needs that you think the provinces should be targeting?
Ann Collins
View Ann Collins Profile
Ann Collins
2021-04-23 14:36
Through you, Mr. Chair, we commend the government for the added $4 billion directed to address the backlog and the million dollars for vaccine delivery. We are not yet fully aware of what the impact of this pandemic will be on backlogs. We know that there have been incredible increases in wait times. We know that people have delayed seeking medical attention. What that will lead to when they arrive, of course, is diagnoses that are much more complex, and the need for diagnostic and treatment services will be that much more complex as well.
We also feel that it's imperative that there be a commitment to a previous promise that every Canadian should and can have a family doctor. We know that primary care is critical in how we deliver care to Canadians, including what is going to be needed post pandemic, and there is also the incredible requirement for what we anticipate is going to be needed to provide mental health care not only to health care providers, but to their patients as well, as we come out of this pandemic.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-23 14:42
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for their contributions, which help us understand the collateral damage caused by this pandemic. One of our concerns is patients who haven't had COVID-19. Physicians from the Canadian Medical Association have provided an overview that talks a lot about the management of the pandemic. We've heard very little about the collateral damage to patients who haven't had COVID-19.
Dr. Bélanger, from the Association des gastro-entérologues du Québec, recently told us that urgent matters should not cause us to lose sight of what's important. When we talk about the fight against cancer, we agree that this disease doesn't wait for pandemics or their resolution to spread.
Dr. Collins, I get the impression that you have a very clear idea of what the post-pandemic will be like. When will it take place? You said earlier that something had to be done during the pandemic, that you were pleased with the funding to deal with what happens during that time and that we would have to see afterwards, but what do you mean by “after”? When will this happen?
Abdo Shabah
View Abdo Shabah Profile
Abdo Shabah
2021-04-23 14:43
Thank you, Dr. Collins.
Thank you for your question, Mr. Thériault. It's quite relevant.
It's undeniable that the tragedy of the pandemic today is compounded by collateral effects caused by delays in medical procedures. CMA investigated this issue in October of last year and recently released a report on reducing delays.
I'll mention some of the findings of the report. As COVID-19 cases began to increase in Canada, it became clear that there was additional pressure on the health care system. This is what we're experiencing today, on a daily basis.
You talked about what is urgent and what is important. We're dealing today with what's urgent, but the report also talks about what's important. This includes procedures such as joint replacement, which affects quality of life, cataract surgery, or diagnostic imaging, which has a major impact not only on quality of life but also on survival. When we're trying to diagnose cancers, for example, we're facing significant delays that result in a significant backlog of procedures and a significant increase in wait times. The situation surrounding these interventions, which are essential to survival and have a significant impact on [Technical difficulties—Editor], allows us to take a look at the precarious nature of our health care system.
Therefore, we're calling on all levels of government to expand primary health care services and increase support for health care so we can deal with those backlogs that were already starting to build up by the time we realized the situation, during the first wave of the pandemic. There was a second wave and now there is a third wave. It's clear that Canadians will suffer the consequences of that.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Thanks, Dr. Collins.
On April 20, you released a statement in response to budget 2021 that said the following:
We are...disappointed that this budget did nothing to address the problems faced by the nearly five million Canadians who must navigate medical issues without consistent access to a family doctor or a primary care provider. The federal government has committed on numerous occasions to ensuring each Canadian has access to a primary care professional, but we have yet to see any real commitment to this ongoing issue.
What will be the impact of this lack of action?
Ann Collins
View Ann Collins Profile
Ann Collins
2021-04-23 14:51
Primary care is clearly the front door to the health care system, and as I've stated earlier, we don't know the full impact the pandemic has had with respect to wait times, and so on, but we know that those Canadians who do not have a family doctor are going to have a much harder time navigating the system to deal with issues such as their mental health care. We know that seniors need strong access to primary care.
We've not mentioned it today, but patients with long COVID are going to need primary care. Thus, we need to see a commitment to delivering on that, to expanding the role of primary care teams. Also, we need to start being more innovative and look at how we deliver health care with respect to the social determinants of health and taking in the many issues beautifully outlined by Dr. Bloch around equity in health care.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-19 11:42
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank all the witnesses for joining us. I will turn to Dr. Bélanger first.
We have gone through the first and second waves, and we are starting the third. The pandemic has forced our networks to organize care into two categories of patients: those who have COVID-19 and those who do not.
We seem to be forgetting that the real effects of the pandemic will really emerge when we have a complete handle on the situation of patients who do not have COVID-19. It would be wrong to think that we will have overcome the pandemic when everyone is immunized because the pandemic will still have collateral effects, perhaps for more than one year, perhaps more than two.
The figures are horrifying. You told us just now that 110,000 people are waiting for a colonoscopy and that 63% of the colonoscopies are late. You also told us that colon cancer is the third most frequent and the second most deadly.
So what are the consequences of those delays? What are your fears?
Mélanie Bélanger
View Mélanie Bélanger Profile
Mélanie Bélanger
2021-04-19 11:43
The biggest impact is not seeing asymptomatic patients for colon cancer screening now and only seeing them later. This will inevitably result in a demonstrable increase in the number of colon cancer cases in the coming months and years.
As a clear illustration, with no pandemic, a monthly average of about 55,000 fecal blood tests in Quebec are positive. An average positivity rate of 5% means that we get 2,750 positive tests. As it is said that 35% of the patients testing positive are in the latency period, we can conclude that, each month, in Quebec, about 1,000 patients are seen endoscopically and therefore avoid developing colon cancer.
Consequently, for every month when those patients are not seen, their lesions progress. The science proves that, for a patient in that trajectory, when you push back a colonoscopy for eight months, you double the risk of cancer and of cancer at an advanced stage.
Not seeing those asymptomatic patients now, through no fault of their own, involves much more than one problem. At the outset, we are dealing with an illness, a cancer, that is completely preventable under normal circumstances. Months later, we end up with confirmed cancer, advanced cancer, and terminal cancer.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-19 11:45
According to the Quebec Association of Gastro-Enterologists, with patients receiving a cancer diagnosis, the real effects will only be known in a number of years and could lead to death. We are not going to see those effects in a month, but often only in several years.
We know that, before the first wave, the network was already fragile. Chronic underfunding was already a problem. Everyone came to tell us that.
You told us just now that, in your practice, there was a delay after the first wave. If we continue the current trend, do you feel that will clear the backlog? If so, how long will that take?
Mélanie Bélanger
View Mélanie Bélanger Profile
Mélanie Bélanger
2021-04-19 11:46
In Quebec, as of today, there has been no single month when we have been able to perform the same number of colonoscopies as in the corresponding month last year. The current resources do not even let us stop the backlog from increasing. Let me give you an example to give you an idea of the situation. During the pandemic, we performed 63,323 fewer colonoscopies than by the same date last year. The monthly average of colonoscopies done in endoscopy units in Quebec was 22,000. Compared to last year, the accumulated backlog represents three months of full-time work in all those units in Quebec. That is what we need just to handle the backlog and it excludes any additional patient load.
Our current resources will certainly not allow us to respond to the influx of patients that we know we are going to face. Because of factors like physical distancing and the fact that, in some cases, patients cannot present for their appointments because they have to be in isolation, our current resources will not allow us to conduct the same number of colonoscopies per month. Continuing along these lines will only increase the backlog. Eventually, therefore, we are going to be dealing with patients who are more seriously ill.
Just talk to doctors working on the front lines. We see tragedies every day. In some cases, illnesses are diagnosed too late. I exclude colon cancer here. We see more advanced illnesses, surgical procedures, hospitalizations and deaths that could have been avoided. Avoidable deaths are an everyday occurrence for front-line doctors.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-19 11:47
Dr. Soulez, from the Canadian Association of radiologists, told us that these delays are going to increase mortality rates. So you have the same fears. Does it make sense to you to say that, after the pandemic, investments must be sustainable and federal health transfers must be increased?
Results: 91 - 105 of 666 | Page: 7 of 45

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