Breaking Out Of Old Policy Boxes

Today, the former Saskatchewan premier is leading a crusade to create a Canadian Index of Well-Being. It will measure all of the ingredients of a healthy society, not just the availability of doctors or length of surgical waiting lists. Once this new tool is in place, Romanow believes, the public debate will widen to include the nagging truths that lay outside his mandate as a repairman for the illness treatment system.

"A viable health-care system, even the best in the world, cannot, by itself, produce the healthiest people in the world," he says.

For the last three years, statisticians, economists, health-care experts, environmentalists, social scientists and civic leaders have been working on the groundbreaking index. A prototype should be ready this fall.

A second example is Michael Decter, founding chairman of the Health Council of Canada.

In June, he resigned as head of the federal-provincial agency that monitors Canada's medical system to devote his attention to the health of the ecosystem. "I've become very, very concerned about the broader environmental issues that connect to health," he said. "There are a lot more connections than maybe we've been willing to believe."

Toronto Star

Note: Toronto Star