Healthcare

This is a petition that I intend to bring forward in the House of Commons that expresses concern over Bill C-51 and its potential of limiting access to natural health food products. I have been contacted by several constituents on this issue, and I am asking for your help to show the government that this bill has been rejected by Canadians as it now stands.

Bill C-51 lumps natural health products in with drugs under a category being called therapeutic products which appears to reverse a long-standing position of having a separate regulatory framework. This, combined with a huge backlog in the licensing of natural health products – a consequence of flawed implementation by consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments – has raised the alarm bells.

For this reason and others concerns pertaining to advertising, adverse reactions, and life-cycle licensing, I am opposed to Bill C-51 as it is presently crafted.

Please click below to download and print a copy to get signatures from friends, family and colleagues. The address to return them to me to submit to the House of Commons is on the petition at the bottom. No postage is necessary.

Thank you!
Wayne

Late last night, I received the news that provincial Health Minister George Smitherman was ending the process that would have eliminated the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) and St. Joseph's Home Care from providing home care in our communities. These two organizations currently provide 80% of home-care nursing in Hamilton.

Below you will find a letter sent to the Minister last December asking him to keep these caregivers in their current roles.

A victory for our community and all the health and labour activists who focused our community at last weeks rally where I was pleased to speak.

December 19, 2007

Hon. George Smitherman
Ontario Minister of Heath and Long-Term Care
Hepburn Block, 10th Floor
80 Grosvenor Street
Toronto, ON M7A 2C4

Dear Minister Smitherman,

As the Member of Parliament for Hamilton East – Stoney Creek I am extremely concerned by the recent denial of the Victorian Order of Nurses’ and St. Joseph’s Homecare’s proposals to provide home care and nursing services by the Community Care Access Centre Agency in Hamilton.

The VON and St. Joseph’s Homecare have jointly provided a high level of care and together traditionally handles 80% of home nursing care in Hamilton which translates to 202,000 visits last year alone. These two not-for-profit agencies have served this community for no less than a century and I fear that the CCAC’s decision to deny contracts to these two agencies is simply another move towards a for-profit approach in the provision of home and nursing care.

As we both know, the cost for health care is growing constantly, however it is not the right of our government to provide a profit-driven, business-model of care. For-profit care does not provide our communities will a high quality of health care, it only allow for corners to be cut and quality of care to be lost.

This denial not only affects those who receive home care, but also those who provide it. The nurses that work for these agencies are fully qualified and dedicated professionals who are often required to go above and beyond the typical role of nurse. But they do their jobs with such dedication and care. This community needs these care-givers to remain in their current roles.

It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to take care of everyone, especially the most vulnerable members of our society, whether they are sick, elderly, disabled or poor, and I would ask that you investigate this proposal denial to ensure that these agencies are provided an adequate answer for the dismissal.

Sincerely,

(original signed by Mr. Marston)

Wayne Marston, MP
Hamilton East – Stoney Creek

PUBLICATION: The Hamilton Spectator
BYLINE: Daniel Nolan

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1,500 pack hall to back VON, St. Jo caregivers

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Union leaders, politicians, patients and just plain citizens packed a rally to support 200 home-care providers who will soon lose their jobs after being denied a contract renewal.

The event last night for the Victorian Order of Nurses and St. Joseph's Home care also attracted comedian Mary Walsh. She acted as co-host with CHAM 820 morning man Jason Farr, and American labour professor Tom Juravich. He entertained with songs he had written for the rally such as "Mean Things Happening in this Town" and the "New Home Care Song." It also featured numerous video testimonials from families who praised the two services and expressed fears for the future.

Organizers estimated about 1,500 people attended the rally at the Michelangelo Banquet Centre and they hope the attendance sends a message to the Ontario Liberal government to review the bidding process by the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC), which eliminated the VON and St. Joseph's last month from the request for proposal process that will determine who gets contracts for home care in the city. The two organizations currently handle 80 per cent of home care in Hamilton, but their contracts end March 31.

"They should take a step back and review this," said co-organizer Dave Murphy, vice-president of CUPE Local 4800 at Hamilton Health Sciences. "They should take a look at the whole process and start again. Don't shroud this process in secrecy."

The CCAC is expected to announce next month who won the new contracts. It won't say why the two services were eliminated, but they were dropped at the stage where written proposals were examined.

CCAC senior director Janet Doering said she welcomed the public appealing to the province for a review, but noted the request for proposals process had been reviewed by former health minister Elinor Caplan a few years ago and Caplan consulted with unions and patients.

"We already understood clearly that some people don't support the RFP process," she said.

"To be fair to the province, they did not create this whole RFP process in isolation ... This was not something cooked up in a back room," Doering said.

The rally featured more than half a dozen speakers, including federal NDP Leader Jack Layton, local NDP MPPs Paul Miller (who has asked the auditor general to audit the RFP process) and Andrea Horwath, and Joe Mancinelli, president of the Labourers International Union of North America (LIUNA). It was attended by local New Democrat MPs David Christopherson and Wayne Marston, city councillors Tom Jackson, Scott Duvall and Terry Whitehead, and Henry Watson, head of the local firefighters association.

Layton and Horwath denounced the involvement of for-profit corporations in the delivery of home care. Layton told the crowd how his 85-year-old mother-in-law received home care from a for-profit company and the care was not adequate.He didn't blamed the nurse, but her company, because it gave her too many patients to look after. He had to call a "complaint centre" to talk about his in-law's care.

"We should throw out the whole idea of competition for health care," Layton said.

NDP PLAN TO DEAL WITH PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS

During meetings in my office or when I’ve been out and about in Hamilton East –Stoney Creek I’ve heard about skyrocketing prescription drug prices from a lot of working families in my riding.

Between 1992 and 2002, household spending on prescription drugs jumped more than 70%. Over that same period, spending on food, clothing and shelter increased by 11%.

No family should face the burden of overwhelming drug costs alone: each year we spend nearly 4 billion dollars out of our own pockets on pharmaceutical drugs.

It is time that reasonable solutions are brought forward. Canada must provide working families with assurances that financial hardship won’t be a barrier to getting the prescription drugs they need. If you get sick and can’t afford the drugs needed to survive the federal government should step in to help.

NDP FIGHTS FOR CONTINUED AIDS FUNDING
MPs Demand Federal Government Keep Its Promises on World AIDS Day

HAMILTON – Hamilton’s NDP MPs are pleased that the federal government has finally announced new money for HIV/AIDS but say that the announcement is just a first step.

The Minister’s announcement comes on the heels of a motion introduced by the NDP in the House of Commons on Wednesday urging the Conservative government to finally commit new money for the fight against HIV/AIDS and allow cheaper generic drugs to be produced for use in Canada and abroad.

“It is important that an announcement has finally been made,” said Hamilton Centre MP David Christopherson. “I was dismayed when our own Prime Minister refused to come to participate in the International AIDS Conference and even more so when no new funding was announced.”

STATEMENT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

Mr. Speaker, this week Canadians will don red ribbons to remind us all of the continuing fight against HIV-AIDS in our communities and around the world. December 1 is Global HIV-AIDS Awareness Day.

As we look at fighting the HIV-AIDS pandemic, we must not ignore the need to protect the human rights of people living with HIV. To respond effectively to the HIV epidemic, we must respect and protect the rights of those who are most affected and most at risk.

The Canadian government must find a way to more effectively ensure drug treatments are flowing from Canada to the developing world. This includes fixing the fundamentally flawed legislation allowing the export of generic drugs and meeting our dollar commitments to the global fund in the fight against HIV-AIDS.

Excerpt from the House of Commons

The Conservative government talked only about innovation in health care in its throne speech. It did not talk about the need to invest in innovations instead of squandering our money on GST or corporate tax cuts.

We are failing our parents and grandparents, the people who built our country because too many of them cannot get the basic care they need. That is why I am so pleased to join my caucus colleagues to fight in this Parliament to enact the principles in the NDP's senior charter.

We will give working families the tools they need to support their parents and grandparents, so that seniors have access to good quality, long term care, so that seniors and people with disabilities get the home care they need, and so that no senior is ever forced to choose between buying medicine that they need or buying groceries.