Working to promote health and well-being is not only about curing symptoms; it also is about confronting the causes of suffering and injustice in our society. A basic moral test of any society is how the weak and poor in its midst are treated.

At the end of February 2002, the Ecumenical Health Care Network, with the support of the Canadian Council of Churches , organized a Canadian Churches’ Forum on the Future of Health Care. More than 100 health care advocates, guest speakers and politicians gathered to discuss health care concerns in light of the Kirby and Romanow Commissions. The most impressive presentation came from Dr. Nuala Kenny who developed her key message that “the health care encounter is a place of moral meaning.”

Dr. Kenny also indicated that health needs are different from other needs; they are experienced at a time of great vulnerability. In sickness we lose control and we become dependant. Medical care is not a commodity; it is not like buying socks. The values that we must defend all deal with justice… In health care issues, Canadians do not allow only a market response; Canadians believe in equity. We must ‘privilege’ those who have the greatest needs.

She challenged us by saying "If we hold so few values in common, we are not any longer a community.” She also reminded us that there is a prophetic role for policy: policy can support justice, fairness and compassion.

The Ecumenical Health Care Network approved a Health Care Covenant for All People in Canada. A copy of this covenant is attached as a pdf file with our intervention in this on-line discussion. In that covenant, we pledged to “uphold a health care system through which all people in Canada share the benefits of health and the burdens of illness with particular compassion for the weak, caring for the vulnerable, solidarity with our neighbours, and a commitment to social justice for all”.

We submit this Health Care Covenant as part of the churches’ contribution to the debate about the future of health care in Canada.

Values

Increasingly, the values in our society (and indeed in the world) are shaped by the values of the market. Return on investment, commercialization, commodification and globalization are the primary factors that are shaping our social relations today. Dr. Nuala Kenny further challenged us – and all Canadians - at the Church’s Forum on the Future of Health Care in Canada by saying that “We’ve got to put our money where our values are!!”. We believe that the key values of solidarity, community, equity, compassion, and efficiency (which under gird Medicare today) are the values that should take priority over a market driven approach to health care.

Dr. Kenny writes in Ethical Dilemmas in the Current Health Care Environment (as part of Do We Care? Renewing Canada’s Commitment to Health: “Without an explicit reflection on the values Canadians hold in common there can be no good judgment as to which new values to incorporate and which to reject. And certainly, without attention to values there can be no good policy.” We believe that a commitment to social justice, as expressed in the key values above and which currently are at the heart of the five principles of Medicare, should continue to help direct our future vision for health care in Canada.

In March 1 of 2002, we said that patients are not simply consumers, and, echoing Dr. Kenny, we said that health care is not like purchasing socks. Health is one of the most basic human goods; without health, other goods will simply not be available to us. It is therefore not surprising that health care has become for Canadians one of the defining characteristics of our national identity, an expression of our commitment not only to ourselves, but to the communities to which we belong and of which we are a part. The Medicare system is an expression of our belief that medical needs are too fundamental to be responded to solely on the basis of market forces and for reasons of profit.

We urge that you hold the key values of solidarity, community, equity, compassion and efficiency at the centre of your policy deliberations. These values should enable you to see clearly that (1) health care is a public good, not a market good, and that (2) health should be seen as holistic, including physical, emotional, spiritual and social well-being.

Canadian churches are working together to contribute an ethical voice to the ongoing dialogue and debate about the future of health care in Canada.

Read the Report

"A Health Covenant For All People In Canada"

click on the above link to read the report