Our governments don't care about throwing money into the garbage, what they care is to finally control the lives of all the citizens by the implementation of computerized health records. And this is why our own provincial government along with SHIN are entering into contractual arrangements with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), HL7 Canada and the Western Health Information Collaborative (WHIC) agency(1). Bruce Phillips, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, has explicitly expressed his privacy concerns about establishing unique national identifiers for patients, facilities and service providers; and introducing national standards for reporting prescription drug use(2).

Health care in Canada is supposed to be a public service, and now we are going to have our own governments going into the private business of selling our own health records. It is disconcerting to realize the deceptive interest of our governments to govern our lives and implement the consolidation of computerized health records, while at the same time hailing the efficiencies provided by the related computerized health network.

Health care is dysfunctional across Canada, the implementation of new health information technologies have been a disaster across Canada, and now we are going to have our own freedom taken away by the governmental selling of our own health records. And the fear that our governments are going to infringe on our own freedom is not a joke, as this same privacy concern has been raised in the United States and new regulations have been passed to protect the privacy of US citizens(3).

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign

1. The SHIN Saga of Health Reform: Common Problem, No Problem? By Mario deSantis, December 18, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000_200/desantis290/noproblem.html

2. ANNUAL REPORT 1999-2000, Privacy Commissioner http://www.privcom.gc.ca/english/02_04_08_e.htm

3. New Medical Privacy Rules, by Laura Meckler, Washington, December 19, 2000, The Associated Press http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,258475-412,00.shtml