Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
a fragmented health system without sufficient communication and decisive political
leadership could have catastrophic consequences.
the implications for canada are obvious. Health canada would have to
communicate with all hospitals intensively and accurately. Provincial health
authorities must frequently coordinate with their federal counterparts, and local
health officials would need to report accurately on the health circumstances and
statistics to municipal governments. Given the three levels of government in canada,
coordination and communication will surely become complicated. Here, simulation
exercises are particularly needed to test the channels of communication between
federal and provincial health authorities and between municipal and provincial
health officials.
timing is also a problem that requires political leadership. when the HKSar
government under c.H. tung considered installing infra-red temperature-testing
equipment at various border checkpoints, it would have taken at least a week to buy,
prepare, test, and install the sophisticated detectors. critics said that the government
should have made that decision much earlier. before the HKSar government decided
to implement temperature tests on all primary and secondary schoolchildren, it had
the timing of all decisions relating to infectious disease will be a similarly huge
challenge to canada's federal, provincial, and municipal governments.
canada's healthcare system, like taiwan's, lacks enough doctors and nurses.
this shortage in canada must be addressed urgently. In the event of a pandemic,
there would inevitably be a gradual attrition of hospital staff. Some workers would
succumb to the virulent infectious disease, as happened with SarS. to replenish the
loss, canada would have to mobilise reserve workers, including medical students
and all immigrants with healthcare backgrounds. the canadian government at both
the federal and the provincial levels must accelerate the process of recognising
the medical qualifications of its large pool of immigrants, whose skills should be
fully available in their new and permanent canadian home, especially in a crisis
situation.
canada can also learn from Hong Kong that its health system can be consolidated
by privatising healthcare delivery so that the federal and provincial governments
would have more available resources. these resources could be allocated to increasing
the pay of hospital staff, supplementing human resources by matching immigrants
with the markets that need their skills, and improving coordination among all the
hospitals and the provincial and municipal governments.
Toward a 20-Point Action Plan for Canada
an unknown variable affecting canada and the world is, of course, the length of any
influenza pandemic. While this factor is perhaps uncontrollable, both the private and
public sectors can take preventive measures to tackle the influenza pandemic. Here
a 20-point action plan is appropriate.
