An idea that was promoted nearly 10 years ago in a column by MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley seems to be on the verge of taking off.
Crowley wrote about a proposed aboriginal-run MRI clinic on the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan and noted that “what is increasingly exercising the health care establishment is the dawning realization that such clinics on reserves likely cannot be subjected to the provincial legislation that establishes much of the edifice of the public sector health care monopoly in Canada,” and imagined if, “instead of travelling to the United States, Montrealers could take the bridge to Kahnawake or some other nearby reserve; or Vancouverites could go to Indian reserves on the North Shore or in South Vancouver and visit a modern medical clinic with all the technical and other innovations that our moribund health care system can’t or won’t allow. Appointment times might actually mean something, for example.”
In recent days the National Post has reported on a BC First Nation planning to offer just this kind of private option and editorialized in its favour. Let’s hope this initiative is a success for both First Nations economic development and Canadians seeking timely treatment.
