Jane Philpott is on a mission to improve health care in Canada — and she thinks spirituality should play a role.
Philpott, who served as a federal health minister from 2015 to 2017, includes that idea in her new book Health for All: A Doctor’s Prescription for a Healthier Canada (Penguin Random House Canada, 2024).
In the book, Philpott, a former family doctor who is dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and director of the School of Medicine at Queen’s University, proposes an ambitious re-set of the Canadian health-care system to ensure every Canadian has access to a doctor.
She suggests Canada’s health care system should operate like the country’s education system.
“If every child is assigned to a public school, why can’t everyone be assigned to a doctor close to where they live?” she said, noting children are enrolled in nearby schools regardless of where they live or whether their family moves to a new location.
“It’s unconscionable that so many today don’t have access to a doctor,” she said, noting that more than six million Canadians do not have a family doctor. “It’s not acceptable, not the kind of society we want to live in.”
Philpott believes attention must also be paid to the spiritual side of well-being.
“I’ve been thinking about this for 40 years,” she said, noting her ideas for holistic health care are drawn from her experience as a family doctor, from serving as a physician in Africa, and from her involvement in federal politics.
“I feel I have a rather broad view of what is working and what isn’t,” she said. “I know there are solutions and I thought I needed to write about it.”
For Philpott, spirituality — which she defines as having hope, belonging, meaning and purpose — is an important part of health care.
“It’s about having a whole person view of health,” she said. “It’s very easy to only focus on physical aspects of well-being. Increasingly, we are recognizing it goes beyond that. It’s hard to be physically healthy if our souls are hurting.”
She takes inspiration for that view from an Indigenous framework of well-being that emphasizes a balance of mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health.
“I was impressed as soon as I saw it, it was so beautiful,” said Philpott, who grew up Presbyterian and now attends a Mennonite church.
Places of worship can assist with helping people spiritually, emotionally and mentally, she says, especially when it comes to providing people with community.
“There is an epidemic of loneliness today that is very damaging to people’s health,” she said. “Many people lack community, they don’t feel connected, there is nobody looking out for them.”
This includes the many older people who have no children or whose children live far away in other provinces or countries. “These are people who have nobody looking out for them,” she said, noting places of worship can provide that sense of connection and support.
Places of worship could also assist through parish nursing, a program that finds retired nurses or doctors either volunteering or being paid to check in on members or others in the community to make sure their health needs are addressed.
“That would be a step in the right direction,” she said said.
Another way places of worship can help address the health-care crisis is by advocating to governments for better access to health care for those who are marginalized and vulnerable.
“If we are true to the values of our faith, we should advocate for everyone to have access to good health care,” she said, but added that she is not in favour of health care being privatized. “Access to health care should not be based on income, but should be based on needs.”
At the end of the day, it comes down to political will, she says, and also finding people willing to do the hard work of rebuilding a healthy society.
“The remedy we await is serious leadership to implement what we already know and to put the well-being of Canadians at the top of the agenda,” she said.
Leave a comment