Don't ignore medical care: CMA
During the annual meeting's strategic session on the future of health, General Council delegates reaffirmed the importance of physicians and organized medicine even as patients take more responsibility for their own health care.
Although they recognized that patients now have considerably more access to medical information through resources such as the Internet, physicians cautioned that information is no substitute for medical care.
"It is important that, as physicians, we understand these changes that are occurring," said Dr. Don Morgan, the Fredericton obstetrician who chairs the CMA Council on Health Care and Promotion. "We must identify areas where our expertise can contribute positively to the process of change and we must ensure that our expertise is utilized."
The session centred on the need to establish the roles of physicians as the concepts behind health and its determinants change, and to stem growing emphasis on determinants of health at the expense of medical care.
Following the session, then CMA President Judith Kazimirski told reporters that even though physicians recognize that determinants such as nutrition and economic factors play a large role in determining the overall health of Canadians, medical services will always be needed.
"Broader determinants of health play a very important role in the overall health of the population but people still get ill and they'll still need medical care," said Kazimirski.
Physicians discussed several health promotion issues and passed numerous resolutions during the meeting.
- They asked Canada's ministries of health to work together to increase public awareness of women who are at risk of substance-use disorders during pregnancy and to provide consistent interventions and treatment.
- They decided the CMA supports an international ban on antipersonnel landmines.
- They decided that governments should require training and licensing of operators of powered watercraft and snowmobiles.
- They decided that the CMA supports principles of parental control over television content through the use of built-in television-receiver technology.
- They issued a call for the federal government to reaffirm, at the Kyoto Convention on Climate Change this December, its position on achieving a 20% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2005.
