The Ben Mulroney Show - Is Alberta's new health plan a future model for the rest of Canada?

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Is Alberta's new health plan a future model for the rest of Canada? with Guest: Dr. Nadia Alam, Family Doctor and Past-President of The Ontario Medical Association -Reliving October 7th Guest: Millet Ben Haim, Nova Music Festival survivor Guest: Hannie Ricardo, the mother of Oriya Ricardo, who was murdered at the Nova Music Festival If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. One of the biggest misnomers about the Canadian healthcare system is that it is in fact a single system. That's not true. Every province has its own system that is supposed to respond to each provinces particular idiosyncrasies, right? So every system is completely, not completely different, every system is different. And we are current, but one thing that's universal is that we are in crisis. Never before have we thrown more money into the system

and never before have we gotten worse outcomes on so many levels. And so I am a big believer in throwing every idea out there seeing which ones are the best with the caveat that if it doesn't work, you reverse course. And I am not afraid of trying something new so long as it leads to people getting better outcomes and the system taking better care of people.

Well, Alberta is shifting its focus to something called activity-based surgical funding. And in typical fashion, it's a political football. And so let's figure out what this means, because if it does work, what the heck's wrong with following suit across the country? And if it doesn't work, let's turf it. Let's welcome Dr. Nadia Allam to the show,

family doctor and past president of the Ontario Medical Association. Doctor, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Ben. So what is this new Alberta plan? So it has to do with how hospitals are funded. Like you said, every province has a different way of allocating money, right?

Putting money into the system, how they pay family doctors all the way to how they pay for drugs, how they pay for hospitals, and how they pay for all of the they pay for hospitals, and how they pay for all of the allied health professionals that are involved, not just nurses, but physiotherapists, dentists, etc. etc. Everything that's needed to keep a patient healthy. Now when Alberta talks about the activity-based funding,

they're talking about a component of funding that goes to hospitals, and hospitals are paid in a bunch of different ways it's actually pretty complicated. Ontario has had a similar system since oh how long ago we call it quality based procedures and we've had it since about 2015 I think that's some of the older ones I know like back back to 2013, actually, even earlier, I'm looking at the Ministry of Health website that talks about this. Okay. And we have it for procedures like hip and knee replacement, cataracts, things like removing a uterus,

aortic aneurysm surgery, what else? Things like stroke, heart failure. Doctor, what is this change? How does this change differ from what might be a best practice in other provinces? And why is it garnering so much controversy? So the challenge with something like this is,

if you compare it to a different way of funding the hospital, which is like a global budget where a hospital gets a lump sum and the hospital decides where the money goes, you get less control over it, right? Governments are not really privy to where the money is going and what the rationale is. With something like quality-based procedure funding or activity-based funding, they get to pick where this money goes. And they incentivize access

because the more procedures you do, the more money you make. People love that, right? That is gonna change behavior. The question becomes, if they do more procedures, are they cutting corners anywhere? And that's always the fear with paying people per service. Could you could they put guardrails on this on this system

to ensure that things don't go sideways too quickly? It's challenging putting guardrails on it. They're not going to give a lump sum for a particular procedure. They might say, well, okay, not everybody who comes for a knee replacement, as an example, is the same. You can have 65 year old people who have maybe one illness, maybe they've got high blood pressure or something like that, but they go golfing, they exercise, they walk a lot. They're pretty healthy, right? They eat well. You can also have a 65 year old who has really bad diabetes, kidney failure, heart failure, etc, etc. Someone like that, when they go through a knee surgery, they're going to risk more complications,

they're going to cost more. So sometimes what hospitals do is adjust the price based on the risk of complications. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does. But I don't have a problem with trying things. We are in a crisis and so every idea should be vetted and if it's something that gets past a vetting process and if it works for a government, they should try it. So long as they recognize that if it doesn't work, they should get rid of it. And I have no problem with it. I know that there

are some people who have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that they think comes anywhere close to the line of, oh, we're privatizing the public system. I don't have a problem with it if it leads to better outcomes. Yeah. And that's the hope with something like this. But we know that volume-based funding can have risks associated with it. And if you do, if you're a revolving door, basically, the risk is maybe you let a patient go home too soon. Maybe they should have stayed longer. Maybe you're not giving them all of the services they need because soon as you're done one, you have to get the next one. Right, yeah. Right, and there's to be able to get more and more funding. So it's a double-edged sword.

So what are you gonna be looking at in this new system, this funding model to determine whether in your mind it's a success or not? How quickly people come back to hospital, right? If they go home and they do the rehab, they're back to functioning, they're not going to go back to the hospital, they're going to be fine. One of the things I'm going to be looking for is to see are a lot of people coming back, particularly within the first month after the procedure. Right, because that'll indicate that the job wasn't done.

Exactly. They were let go too soon. Right. I gotcha. Well, thank you very much for that. I think I started this conversation not knowing a whole lot and now I know just a little bit more, which is exactly how much I should know as a radio host. I want to go to a story that we've been talking about for a few days, and I think you're going to bring some color into it and some nuance. But there's the story that Ontario schools have begun suspending students who aren't fully vaccinated. The story was that there were 10,000 students

who weren't up to date with their vaccines. And when I saw that number, my jaw dropped to the floor. So give me a sense of what we're actually up against here. So measles, highly contagious. If you're even in the same room against here. So measles, highly contagious. If you're even in the same room as someone who has measles, 90% chance you're going to get it. If you're unvaccinated, if you are vaccinated, you've got almost a hundred percent chance of being protected. So it is a great vaccine. It is one of our best ones out there. Um, the challenge has been a few

things, right? We've come out of the pandemic and during the pandemic they stopped a lot of vaccine programs, particularly in schools, because schools had shut down and it was all virtual teaching. Part of it is this rise in anti-vaccine sentiment and we see this particularly down south, right? Texas is kind of a hotbed of anti-vaccine sentiment for a variety of different reasons. And part of it is people are now busier. The cost of living has skyrocketed. So everybody's working more. And so they're not paying attention to, have I kept up? Right. Doctors aren't calling them because doctors are swamped with work. So we're not calling people anymore that, oh, you know, you need to come in for a vaccine. What we do instead is tell people come in every

single year. If you're a busy parent, you might not remember to do that. Well, can I tell you, I'm so glad that you brought that nuance to this because I've been operating under, I guess, the false, the misconception that this, this was 10, This is anti vaxxers 10,000 people strong 10,000 children strong and I guess it's it's it's nice to hear a lot of them are probably just busy parents. Yeah, and I certainly was I got those notes, my kids are going to be suspended. I was like, how is this possible? I've managed to keep up haven't I? And you're a doctor, doctor. Isn't that awful? It's so embarrassing. So I rushed to get all of my kids caught up on their vaccines

because between the pandemic, between working, between being busy with kids' activities and just regular living, I had forgotten. So my sympathies to the parents who have forgotten, you are not bad parents, you're just busy, but catch those kids up, protect them the best way you possibly can. It is a great vaccine. Dr. Nati Allam, thank you so much for joining us to two stories that required digging into

and I'm so glad you're here to do that for us. You take care, Ben. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Regular listeners of this program know that my very first day in this chair was October 7th, 2023. I was told by my I'd never done radio before in any meaningful way. And I was told I was going to sit in this chair. And my job was to tell people about all the lovely stuff that was happening in Toronto. It was a Saturday, all the lovely things that there are to do, farmers markets and fairs and all that stuff. But in the in the booth next to us, what is that where the news is delivered?

And every half hour, we were getting these updates in real time of what was happening in Israel at the Nova Music Festival, when Hamas came across the border and showed the world who they are in the most barbaric way possible. And so I am forever linked to that day. And I have made it a big part of my life to stand up against antisemitism, to stand up for the Jewish people of Canada,

and to make sure that history remembers what happened on October 7th correctly. And so there is another effort to do that. There's a Nova Music Festival exhibition that will be opening in the city of Toronto on April 23rd. And it's really easy to Think of that as a flashpoint that that sparked a war and

I think it's really important to look back at that moment and remember that there were people involved There were families that were destroyed there were lives that will never be the same and I am so privileged and humbled To be joined by two of those people right now here on the show, Milet Ben Haim, a Nova Music Festival survivor, and Hani Ricardo, the mother of Oriya Ricardo, who was murdered at the festival, to both of you. I say thank you so much for being here.

I am so very sorry for what happened to you and to the people of Israel, and I'm so glad that you're here to have this conversation. Thank you for having. So talk to me about what let's talk about the exhibition first, and then we'll go back to the day. Problem. What what what is the purpose of the exhibition? It the exhibition is actually showing what happened on October 7th. It starts with

with the magnificent Nova tribe what it is the tribe the trance community and Then it takes you step by step of what happened at the Nova prior to 629 that morning and what happened after. Milad, your story is one of survival. Tell us about that day. It was a beautiful day. It was a gorgeous day. Perfect day to be outside. It was an amazing festival with the best community I can find because we all have those shared values.

We are all equals on that dance floor and we had people from different countries. We had Jews but also Christians and Muslims and Druze and we're all dancing together in this really just ideal moment of feeling peaceful and safe and happy and then the music stopped and sadly in Israel this is not something that is unfamiliar we know what we need to do but the massive barrage of rockets was so severe that we realized that we have to evacuate it we are all trying to escape at the same time, almost for a thousand people. And from that moment on, the way it unraveled is completely horrific. The fact that we have to raise awareness for this festival

is saddens me, because you were there. You survived. I'm sure that you have loved ones who did not. And yet there is this push in certain parts of the world and in dark parts of people's souls that want to deny big chunks of what happened or they want to turn it into something it was not. They want to say it was an act of defiance as opposed to what it actually was. And so how do you feel that while you're dealing with trauma and you're dealing with loss, you're also trying to force history to be written properly? Well, unfortunately, we are used to the fact that history is rewritten.

We see it about the Holocaust. You have the Holocaust denials. And I'm, as a Holocaust scholar, I know quite a bit about that. And I saw the day after, on October 8th, I saw already the rewriting of history, which was so arranged around the world. And October 7th massacre was forgotten the day after. And it, it furious me. And this is part of my journey because I decided that I'm not going to be silent.

Is part of this journey for you so that your loss is, doesn't get diluted? I don't want my daughter to be forgotten. I don't want the other kids to be forgotten. And I need to stand up and stand tall and say it out loud. How old was Aurea? Aurea was 26. 26, and she must have, this must have been a festival

she was looking forward to? Oh, she was part of the Nova tribe for years. I knew she was, she loved it. And her name is the light of God. She was the definition of light. And every time I hear a parent talk about their kids, it seems like they're talking about my Oria. And every time I hear a parent talk about their kids, it seems like they're talking about my Aurea.

They were, as Milet said, they shared the same values, and they loved love, peace, and light. How do you remember her? Oh my goodness. Definition of light. To hear her voice, to hear her giggling laugh, and her voice saying, it's mamacita! That's the way she used to call me. It was the light of my life.

Milet, is this exhibition part of the healing process for you? For me, that exhibition is not even an exhibition. It is Nova. And I feel very seen when I go through that space because it shares and captures the essence of our community and what happened to us. And you talked to us before about how people are either denying it, justifying it, trying to demean the experience. And I think when people see it, they can truly understand what happened. And it's just a neutral ground to have that dialogue. Because we're not talking about politics,

we're talking about human beings and what we went through. And this is something that all humankind should be concerned of. We all need to speak up against evil and that could have been the Coachella. It's a music festival that people came to dance. We only came to celebrate love and life and this is what happened to us. And the fact that the people surrounding us are not talking about it, are not speaking up against it, is another cyclical devastation for us. I have to assume that the families and the survivors

played a big hand in building out this exhibition. Correct. So it's an initiative of the producers of the actual festival. And it started off in Israel for the first time as a commemoration exhibition. We wanted a place to pay respect to our loved ones, to cry together, to process together. And only after we realized what an impactful tool that can be to really educate the world to understand what happened in order for it to never happen again. Well, Milet, I want to thank you for coming in

and Chani, I want to thank you as well. Raising awareness for the NOVA Music Festival exhibition. It's opening in Toronto on April 23rd and I think the fact that it's in this city, a city I love so much, a city that has a stain on it for how it's been treating the Jewish Torontonians, the community making Jews in this city feel unsafe. I hope that this is something that will shake this city out of its fugue state and make the people in this city realize those who are constantly making Jews feel unsafe and making them feel unwelcome, maybe this will be that thing that can bring everyone together. So thank you very much.

Thank you and please go to novaexhibition.com for more information and bear witness. That would be so meaningful to us. Thank you. To both of you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Want to transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance to love your home with $15,000. There can only be one winner. Tune in to Renovation Resort every Sunday and look for the code word during the show.

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