-~ - - -~. - ___ ___ ___ ___PA GESEVEN, RIMBOMANIA IN THE HEALTH MINISTRY You-,r name please? - last name first, first name kzst, rniddle name middle; address? postal code? married, single, diuorcec4 separated, widowed4 or other? major ilinesses in the last year? inw the Iast ten years? surgery? doctor? how long? may I see your medical insurance card please? No, 11m sonry we can't treat you until we>ue got ail of this information - it's uery important. You can>t find your medical card? Oh, this IS serious - Please have a seat whdle we look into this. The image of the half-dead patient gushing blood from every pore while an offiejous nurse asks endJess questions is one of the most enduring caricatures of the bureaucratic world we live in. It is a standard gag for stand-up conmics and cartoonists alike. It gets a. good iaugh every time - a bittersWeet Iaugh because we've ail been there. To a bureaucrat,' making sure a patient has the appropriate 'insurance papers is more important than treating bis illness. In tbe next week you will be getting an. application for a new 0H11> nuinher. Wby? Because they screwed up the last set of numbers tbey gave us. If youre rny age, you'll remember somne of the transitions that Ontario's bealth insurance bas been through. Ini the early 60's, there wa.8 hospital insurance. The doctors had a_________ _____________________________ private inýSurance scbeme called PSI. Wben tbe government took it over, it became OMSIP, but bospital insurance was stili separate - you needed two numbers to get treatment at. tbe bospital. Then -it became 0H51?, and.finally 0H11' wbicb combined hospital and medical, services. 0H11> was tbeoreti- -, ' cally paid by tbe user and your number was the goverrnment's way of determining that premiums bad been paid. OHIIP was virtuallyuies, yet you stili needed a num- ber. Even people wbo I ettheirsoverage lapse were insured by simply paying the previous three montbs preniiunis. To people working in the medical field as I was, it was an inrdbewaste of trne, energy'and tax dollars. Who cared what -a person's OT.IP 9umber was - everybody was insured and we were employed to belp people, not barass tbem. In January, the government transferred OHI? payments to a direct payroll tax on employers. The eliniination of 0H11' numbers seemed sure to follow. Think of tbe money we could save; tbink of the harassment we could avoid. 0H11> nunibers do nothing but provide work for an army of clerks - clerks to write down the nunibers, clerks te, data puncb tbem, clerks to track down the ones that are wrong. And tben the computers count tbem, list them and analyse theni - alpbabeticaily, numerically, by date, by pbysician, by procedure, by cost, by location, etc.'Ail of this is essential information, tbey assured us. Weil, tbey lied. After twenty years the Ministry of Healtb bas no valid * data because tbey screwed up the numbers. There are 18 million valid 0H11> numbers in tbe province but tbe population is only 10 million. They further admit that a year ago there were 27 million numbers but tbey've now cbecked and eliminated a third of these. How many thousands of bours of computer and staff timne did that take only Mte decide Ever Caadin aread ha a ocil Inurace umbr -WHMTYWEBKICLY NEWS unqeveCa ndian aleady bd ocia nsrance IPNumber 0 *Delays in 1"ceving machinery are lowing construction of a new water pumping station at uniqe t eab idiviual- wy d weneedan H11 nuberthe lake sh~ore. as well? Physicians can bull for services just as easily witb a *MreyBni0tenwShr2ofOtro1ony SIN# An forkeeing rac of edial uageone umbr *Town Cou, cf has approved formation of an Oshawa District Planning Board at a private works just as well as anotber. One bureaucracy is enougli. meeting. tHe P numbers are a nonunmental waste of anuolrs At Goe S f the WVhitby General Hziosual Campagn Conmittee are Dr. Kenneth Hobbs,F the WitbyGeneal Hspitl, btwee allthe urse andGeorge Lofthouse, William Davidson,&rdo rb adDso- emn clerks wbo record tbem, transcribe tbem, check them, count tbem, mail tbem, etc, there' are about two equivalent ful trne positions. Multiply that across all of Durham Region in 125 YEARS AGO ail the -hospitals, labs, cinics and doctoes offices and you from the Thursday, March 30, 1865 edition of thé bave a waste of perhaps $2-3 million. Multiply it across the WITBY cHRoMjcU province and you get $30-40 million - tbat's a lot of facilities * he Chro cie accuses Whitby Harbor owner'Chester Draper of cheating and robbing that coul d be bufit ...instead of the bureaucratic empires-tbat other har merchants of their propèrty. migbt eventually conclude thattbere is indeed a crisis, but, a Robert E. err is selling building lots and farms in Wbitby and jIndsay. alas, there isn't enougb money anjrmore because we spent it *fIhe Whit Match Factory is being Sold as the owner is leaving town. on new 0H11' numbers. A1 n brc eiet fWih tedd h eet ulemrnntS th And patients will continue to be barassed for the 0H11> tewn ssep ac hool. k- numbers theynjever needed in the first place.