Michael Rachlis MD

U of M Faculty of Medicine convocation

16 May 2010, 12:00 AM

On May 13, 2010, my Alma Mater, the University of Manitoba granted me an honorary degree (LLD, honoris causa) at the Faculty of Medicine convocation. You can read a copy of my address to the graduates here. In doing some research for my speech, I discovered that 2010 marks the 100^th anniversary of Tommy Douglas’s arrival in Canada from Scotland. His family settled in Winnipeg.

Here is a picture of me with my companions at a dinner at the Manitoba Club on May 12^th. Grant Mitchell is an old friend and Winnipeg lawyer extraordinaire. Evelyn is one of the world’s most knowledgeable persons on health and social policy for the elderly and was an important mentor to me in medical school. Joel Kettner is Manitoba’s chief public health officer and an old friend from medical school student politics.

Front row from left: Me, Professor Emeritus Evelyn Shapiro, Dr. Joel Kettner

Back row from left: Grant Mitchell, University of Manitoba President Dr. David Barnard, Dean of Medicine Dr. Dean Sandham.

Primary Health Care Meeting in Southey, SK

6 March 2010, 12:00 AM

On March 3^rd, I had the delight of speaking at a meeting on primary health care in Southey Saskatchewan. Southey is located about 80 km north of Regina. Despite a blizzard on the way from Regina to Southey, there were 160 people there from as far away as Yorkton (230 km East) and Maple Creek (460 km West). Here is my presentation from that day. And, here is a picture of me with some of the organizers. Well done all!

From left: Fiona Bishop VP Saskatchewan Federation of Union Retirees, Betty Pickering President Saskatchewan Federation of Union retirees, Holly Schick, executive director Saskatchewan Seniors Mechanism, me

Happy Valentine's Day!

14 February 2010, 12:00 AM

I had a magnificent trip to Sweden Jan 8-17, 2010. I was speaking to groups of social democratic politicians about Canadian health policy. I got know a lot of Swedes, from all political perspectives. I started off in Stockholm where I spoke to some national politicians and county level politicians who are responsible for doctors and hospitals and a fair bit of community services. There are 22 Swedish counties and their responsibilities include health care, transportation and culture. They don’t have the regionalism you see in Canada or Spain. It’s a much more homogeneous country. There are non-white faces in Stockholm but not much outside.

After three days in Stockholm, I went to Uppsala 80 km north of Stockholm where my main hosts live. I met the Uppsala County social democratic health committee in October 2008 when they Ire touring Toronto. They have an annual meeting with social democratic party health care committees from five counties around Stockholm and I was the keynote speaker. One of the interesting things I noticed was the dislike of the capital (Stockholm) by the regional folks, much the way all Canadians seem to carry a dislike for Toronto as the home of the place with the money. The conference was held at a 13th century castle just outside of Uppsala.

After two nights in Uppsala and then I took a train to Tallberg about 300 km NW of Stockholm. Tallberg is small (pop 1000) but Big (1200 hotel rooms). It is a major tourist town on a large beautiful lake. It is known as the real Sweden and from the train the countryside looked like it probably looked hundreds years ago — lots of red log houses, cleared plots with small farms, and lots of forest. About 1850 some Swedish artist relocated here and restored a 17th century log house and then the town and its tourism took off. Of course I was there in low season.

The last night in Tallberg my wife and I were guests for dinner at the home of Christina. She is the step-grand daughter of Olof  Aschberg  who set up the first private bank in the USSR with Lenin’s blessings. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Aschberg for more details. The dinner included the president of the local branch of the Moderate party (the senior member of the current ruling right wing coalition) and the mayor of Tallberg district who was a member of a party in the left wing coalition. The Moderate Party person and his wife had lived in Toronto and the US so they had a particularly interesting perspective. However, I concluded that Swedish moderates’ basic philosophy was not that much different from what most social democrats would support in Canada.

For more on Swedish health care see:

Health and medical Care fact sheet Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs 2007

Quality and Efficiency in Swedish Health Care: Regional Comparisons 2007.

The Organization of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. 2009

For more on Swedish politics and the race leading up to this September’s election:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_general_election,_2010

Here is a presentation I gave to the five counties meeting.

Here’s a picture of me with my main hosts Bertil Kinnunen an organizer for the Social Democratic Party in Uppsala County and Lena Rönnberg who is the chair of the party’s health committee.

It's the Wild Rose West: My week in Alberta

18 October 2009, 9:48 PM

I got back Saturday (the 17th) after a fun week in Alberta. I spoke to a number of events organized by Alberta Friends of Medicare. There were over 500 people who attended a raucous public meeting at the Polish Hall in Edmonton on Tuesday night. See the coverage in the Edmonton Journal. Kudos to Dave Eggen Friends of Medicare coordinator, Della Drury his campaign worker, economist Diana Gibson, research director at the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute who also spoke, and dozens of other folks who helped organize the meeting.

On Wednesday morning Dave Eggen and I flew to Calgary but our plane to Medicine Hat was cancelled because of snow so we rented a car and started our southern Alberta road trip. We had a wonderful crowd of 150 that night. Thanks so much to Jan Bunney chair of the Medicine Hat Chapter of Friends. It’s an amazing group of folks. Amongst other things they participate in Medicare Mondays where they go to places like Tim Horton’s and talk to people about health care in their community. Here’s a picture of Dave Eggen, Jan Bunney, and me.

Then it was on to Lethbridge where Michael Cormican and his chapter organized a terrific meeting Thursday night at Southminster Church.

We drove to Calgary on Friday morning where I talked to a meeting of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.

I will be writing up my analysis of my Alberta trip in the next few days but you can read the op ed I wrote before the trip here. It is quite frightening how quickly Alberta seems to be eroding the public system.