Michael Rachlis MD

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

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.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving Canadians and Americans

12 October 2009, 3:15 PM

I’m touring Alberta next week and the US Senate Finance committee may vote for a health bill

There is lots of exciting health policy doings on both sides of the border. In Ontario the Ehealth problems have caused health minister David Caplan to resign and left boards and CEOs quivering in anticipation of being the opposition’s next target.

In Alberta, the government has cut public coverage for a variety of services and is claiming the current economic crisis means the end of the single payer system. See my op-ed, “Repair Medicare, don’t privatize” in today’s Edmonton Journal: I will be speaking in several Alberta locations next week. Here’s my schedule or check with the Alberta Friends of Medicare

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It's been a busy couple of weeks on wait times.

15 May 2009, 11:16 AM

On Tuesday May 5th, I met with the New Brunswick deputy minister, Don Ferguson in Fredericton with Mike McBane, the coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition and Debbie Lacelle, co-chairperson of the New Brunswick Health Coalition. We also met with assistant deputy ministers: Jean-Marc Depuis (Planning, sustainability, and e-health), Roberte O’Reagan, Executive Director Hospital Services, and Kelli Simmonds, Executive Director Research, Planning, Evaluation, and Policy. The meeting went very well. I gave a presentation on the application of queueing theory to reduce waits and delays in our system and then we had a frank talk about public sector solutions to wait times.

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