(Continued from page )

He acknowledges the possible viability of primary health care reform models that include all health professionals, as well as family doctors, as part of a team addressing a community’s needs. This might work, he thinks, especially if the configuration could include the provision of continuing/ community care (as is now, to some degree, the model in Quebec).

 

Hollander’s preference, which he calls “The Third Way”, is to maintain the five sectors (hospitals, doctors, public health, continuing/community care and pharmaceuticals) and to build effective links between them at every level.  This includes cross-ministerial collaboration, as well as continuing/community care “reaching in” to hospitals to assess and arrange to meet the care needs of patients about to be discharged.  He envisions that the elimination of the fee-for-service method of paying family doctors would allow them to act as case managers for their patients, essentially buying and monitoring both hospital and continuing/community care services on their behalf.

 

Above all, he thinks, we need funding to follow patients from one sector to another, not by any voucher system, but indirectly through continual monitoring of the case volumes of all sectors and shifting funding accordingly.

 

This proposal is controversial, of course, but certainly worth considering and debating. Readers interested in reading the whole report can download it from the following site:

http://www.hollanderanalytical.com/group/current-projects.html

 

Changes

Harriet Smith Retiring Treasurer

 

Harriet Smith retired at the end of June as treasurer of Care Watch Toronto after serving in that capacity for three years. Harriet has been active with this organization since its founding. Although her earlier university graduate degree led her to a career in medical microbiology, she became interested in her retirement years in advocacy for the elderly, becoming active in this field following earning a Certificate in Gerontology from Ryerson University. Harriet has served: on the Long term Care Committee of the Toronto District Health Council; on the founding Board of Directors on the Toronto Community Care Access Centre; on the Board of directors of the Advocacy Centre For The Elderly (ACE); and was former president of the Toronto Memorial Society as well as former chair of the Toronto Mayor’s Committee on Aging.

 

Harriet has done a superb job as treasurer, and we will miss her meticulous attention to detail and her tactful way of saying no. Where were you, Harriet, when the big U.S. Corporations needed you?

 

Thank you Harriet.

Don Cameron to be Newsletter Editor

 

Don Cameron will take over from Fred Reynolds as editor of the newsletter.

 

Don began as an elementary school teacher, and moved into social work at the Toronto Board of Education. He worked in child welfare for Metro Children’s Aid and Catholic Children’s Aid until he retired in 1993. He has a Masters Degree in education and a PH.D in social work from the University of Toronto. Since 1993, Don has been an active member of the Ontario Association of Social Workers and of the Social Justice Committee at First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto.

 

Don’s wife, Joyce, suffers from dementia and has been a resident at Castleview Wychwood Towers since Jan, 2001.