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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

First Do No Harm

Making Sense of Canadian Health Reform

Is there a crisis in Canadian health care? While the establishment of the Canadian health care system is widely considered a triumph of citizenship, after four decades the national program is in a fragile state marked by declining public confidence. In First Do No Harm, Sullivan and Baranek provide a concise introduction to the fundamentals of health care in Canada and examine various ideas for reforming the system sensibly. Arguing that administrators and policymakers should follow Hippocrates’ dictum “first do no harm” when evaluating and reforming the Canadian health care system, the authors discuss health care financing, popular Canadian health care myths, waiting lists and emergency room overcrowding, and home- and community-based health care. This book is an invaluable invitation to Canadians to think carefully and creatively about the present and future of our health care system.

120 pages | © 2002


Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

1 Declining Public Confidence in Canada’s Health Care System

2 What is Public and What is Private?

3 Memes and Myths

4 Canaries in the Mine: Waiting for Care

5 Closer to Home and Out of Pocket: Shifting Sites of Care

6 The Future: Rigid, Resilient, or Retail Reform Choices

Endnotes

Index

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