Dom Lucyk is the Communications Director of SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think tankCanadian health care is in crisis. This isn’t new information. For years, thousands have died on waitlists, while governments have thrown money at the system and wait times have steadily grown.It’s time for action, now. Canadian patients should not be forced to sit and suffer on waitlists with no other option. Thankfully, Europe has a policy in place that our country could copy and help more patients receive treatment within weeks rather than years..First, a little history.In 2002, the United Kingdom (UK) was still a part of the European Union. Yvonne Watts, a 71-year-old English woman, was suffering from arthritis in her hips. She needed surgery, but the government system in that country told her she would have to wait a full year.In Canada, waiting a year might actually seem like a decent deal (considering the average wait time for a hip replacement in Edmonton is around 15 months, with some waiting well over two years.) But for Watts, it was unacceptable. She travelled to France and got her surgery, paying the equivalent of over $10,000 CAD (adjusted for inflation). When she came home, she argued she should be reimbursed for the cost, but was refused by the government.Unfortunately, she never did receive payment for her treatment, but she paved a path that would go on to make health care better across the EU much later.A European Union court judge ruled that governments in the EU should have to reimburse patients for their care abroad. Her case was used to justify the Cross-Border Directive, an EU policy introduced in 2011. In short, it allows patients in one EU country to travel to another, pay for surgery, then be reimbursed for up to the amount it would have cost their home government had the surgery been done locally.This just makes sense. In a universal system, governments charge citizens taxes (in Canada’s case, extremely high taxes) and promise a functioning health care system. But if the government can’t deliver, it’s completely reasonable to expect they would make it easier for a patient to get care elsewhere. It’s also something that could be implemented quickly and with minimal cost. Since patients would have received care in Alberta’s government-run system at some point, reimbursing them for care abroad wouldn’t bring extra costs — it would just mean the cost for the surgery would come earlier. So, what’s the hold-up? Alberta has its fair share of cases like Watts’... and far worse. There are perhaps no better examples than Jeff Krushell. He lives close to Edmonton, and suffered from chronic, severe back pain due to a spinal problem. He’s usually a friendly, likeable guy, the type of guy you’d love to grab a beer with and watch the Oilers game.But it’s genuinely heartbreaking to hear him talk about life before his surgery.“This pain… it engulfs you. It takes over. And I’m a pretty upbeat, happy person, but it sucks the life (out) of you. I slipped into a very, very dark place. I have a real appreciation for depression now, and the darkness that revolves around that … I can’t even tell you the emptiness, the helplessness, that not just me, my family was going through at that time,” he said.And with all that suffering, he was told he would have to wait over a year for corrective surgery in Alberta. Unable to cope with the pain, he took matters into his own hands and flew to the U.S. for care.If the Cross Border Directive had been in place in Alberta, Jeff could have had at least some financial assistance to help pay for his surgery abroad. Considering he paid into the system for his whole life, and it wasn’t there for him, a reimbursement would have at least been something.Sadly, this is not a one-off. Until Alberta seriously reforms its health care system, patients like Jeff will continue to suffer. In Europe, they took this as a lesson and came up with the Cross-Border Directive, which has improved the lives of many patients and made their system better.Alberta should do the same.Dom Lucyk is the Communications Director of SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think tank.
