[homeles_ot-l] Dr. Jeff Turnbull's Speech at ATEH Forum in honour of National Housing day

[Lynne Browne]

PLEASE CIRCULATE *** Media coverage of Dr. Jeff Turnbull Opening Speech at
the standing-room-only Forum held by Alliance to End Homelessness Forum in
honour of National Housing Day. "Poverty and housing should be positioned as
human rights issues, he argued, noting the poor have the same right to
health care, housing, personal safety and privacy that other Canadians take
for granted." 

 

Lynne Browne

Coordinator, Alliance to End Homelessness (ATEH)

147 Besserer St., 2nd Floor, Ottawa, ON K1N 6A7

Office 613-241-7913, ext. 205, Cell 613-513-6647

 <http://www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca/> www.endhomelessnessottawa.ca

 


Fix poverty, fix health, top MD says


 


CMA's president-elect tells homelessness forum doctors must serve community,
not just patients


 

By Andrew Duffy, The Ottawa Citizen November 24, 2009

 

 

OTTAWA - The president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association has called
on the country's doctors to become advocates for the eradication of poverty.

Dr. Jeffrey Turnbull, chief of staff at The Ottawa Hospital, told a forum on
homelessness that doctors must acknowledge poverty as the greatest predictor
of an individual's health.

 

"If you really want to advocate for health, if you really want to make
changes to health, you have to start to make fundamental changes to the way
society is structured," Turnbull said in a speech Monday. "You have to deal
with issues like poverty."

 

Physicians have for too long narrowly defined their professionalism by how
they relate to individual patients, he said.

 

"I think we now have to broaden that concept to say that, as a profession,
we are responsible for ... the health-care system and all members of the
community."

In that expanded role, Turnbull said, doctors would advocate for strategies
that reduce poverty and improve the health of society's most vulnerable
citizens. "You must be standing on a chair, saying this is not sufficient."

 

Turnbull takes over next summer as president of the Canadian Medical
Association, and his latest speech suggests his term in office will offer a
radical departure from some of his predecessors, who have used the platform
to advocate for more private-sector involvement in medicare. 

 

On Monday, he called for national strategies to address mental health
issues, homelessness and poverty. 

 

As medical director for Ottawa Inner City Health, a program that delivers
care to those living on the street, Turnbull has been working with the
homeless for more than a decade. 

 

Ottawa's homeless population, he told the forum, suffers from disease rates
normally associated with Sub-Saharan Africa. The rate of HIV-infection among
Ottawa's chronically homeless is 21 per cent; the hepatitis C rate is 40 per
cent. 

 

Research also shows, he said, that someone in a homeless shelter has only a
31-per-cent chance of living to 75. In the general population, an individual
has an 80 per cent chance of reaching the same age.

 

Those numbers, Turnbull said, highlight the immense cost of poverty and
homelessness, to individuals and to society.

 

"You want to know about costs? You wait until all those individuals start to
get liver impairment as a consequence of their chronic HIV: that's going to
be very, very expensive," he warned.

 

"Just from a pure health perspective, there is a financial imperative that
we address issues of poverty early on because poverty reduction strategies
save money and make sense."

 

Turnbull spoke at a University of Ottawa forum organized by The Alliance to
End Homelessness.

 

He told more than 300 delegates it was time to reframe the issue since
little progress had been made in relieving homelessness.

 

Poverty and housing should be positioned as human rights issues, he argued,
noting the poor have the same right to health care, housing, personal safety
and privacy that other Canadians take for granted. 

 

A national report card on homelessness could hold politicians to account for
respecting those rights, he said. 

 

"Then, when our prime minister is going off to China to talk about their
human rights record, they might quite naturally ask, 'What is Canada doing
for their most vulnerable populations?'"

 

Earlier, Dr. Robert Cushman, chief executive of the Champlain Local Health
Integration Network, issued his own call to action. More affordable and
supportive housing, he said, would allow seniors to stay in the community
longer and relieve pressure on overcrowded hospitals and long-term care
homes in Ottawa. 

 

"If this country needs anything to improve health, it's not more intensive
care beds - it's not even more vaccine - it's more affordable housing,"
Cushman said.

 

 

C Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

 

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