Our SSAI Executive/Directors meeting was held by teleconference this morning.
SSAI 2020 Policy – Health Care – OCT. 2020
The Saskatchewan Seniors Association Incorporated hereby establishes the following policy on health care in Saskatchewan:
- The five historic principles of the Canada Health Act (1984) (universality, access, comprehensiveness, portability and public administration) shall define any vision, current or renewed, for publicly funded health care in Saskatchewan.
- The Federal Government is an essential partner with the provinces in the provision of health care. Among other things, it has the responsibility to define national standards for health care and to provide funding, supplementary to provincial funding, adequate to ensure the implementation of such national standards.
- Timely access to health care and required services and treatment, provided by qualified medical personnel, shall be the right of all residents of Saskatchewan, irrespective of their place of residence, financial circumstances, or state of health.
- Health care shall be deemed to include education, prevention, diagnosis and counselling, and shall be the core element of the Saskatchewan Seniors’ Association Incorporated upon which all health care revolves in a Saskatchewan comprehensive health care system.
- Seniors constitute an increasing proportion of Saskatchewan society. Seniors have special needs and SSAI, on their behalf, urges health care policy makers to take an integrated approach to health care, one that will ensure seniors a measure of independence commensurate with their history; will ensure a quality of life and death with dignity through care at home, in long-term care facilities, and in hospital settings.
- Many Saskatchewan residents rely on medications for their very lives. Given the proportion of seniors making up the Saskatchewan population and their special needs, a review of costs in providing necessary drugs is mandatory. This review should include the way pharmaceuticals are prescribed to an aging population and the benefits to be derived from more holistic approaches to medical treatment. SSAI believes that adequate provision of medication should form an essential component in the provincial health care program.
- All citizens of Saskatchewan have a right to health care. System efficiencies, streamlining operations, and restructuring health care facilities should not be accepted as sufficient reason to deny citizens this right, regardless of location or wealth. It is conceded, however, that such services need to be provided as efficiently as possible.
- Health care shall be provided out of revenues gleaned by governments from public taxation.
- Possible expansion of publicly funded health services should not compromise the availability and quality of those medical services currently insured, except for those services no longer deemed basic or required.
- SSAI will continue to be involved with the development of health care strategies intended to benefit Saskatchewan residents of all generations, in a meaningful and continuing way.
- SSAI urges all levels of government to determine, in concert, their share of the costs of health care and make a commitment to paying such shares each year for several years and that information concerning such agreements be made public.
- SSAI believes that home care should constitute an essential element of the provincial health care system.