It is not exactly groundbreaking insight that poverty and economic insecurity and the stresses that come with that, can have damaging outcomes for health. In the last few years research has also shown that inequality can also be bad for your health. Well, doctors cannot usually do too much about either, but perhaps if medical professions could follow the example from the article I'm about to talk about we might get somewhere.
A team of 50 family health doctors at St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto has started issuing "prescriptions" for income security. Below are the details of why and what they are doing exactly.
All information is from the Toronto Star.
The article first talks about the potential illnesses that can come from being poor.
Studies show that illnesses such as diabetes are twice as common in Ontario’s poorest households. Cardiovascular disease is 17 per cent higher than the national average for low-income Canadians. Cancer, arthritis, and asthma are all more common amongst the poor.
Research suggests that chronic stress, often caused by financial strain, can even impact our very biology.
Now, a team of family health doctors is taking action — in a program that Dr. Gary Bloch says is possibly the first of its kind in North America.
These doctors are obviously not in a position to directly strengthen the welfare state or redistribute income, but they can focus resources and assistance on people who need it in the name of health.
“We had this kind of crazy idea: Why not propose to (the Ministry of Health) a position within these teams focused on what we see as a base determinant of people’s health — in this case income?” says Bloch.
In the summer of last year, the province approved Bloch’s “crazy idea.” Karen Tomlinson joined the hospital’s family health team as full time health promoter, specifically focused on improving patients’ financial situation.
Once the patient receives a prescription for income security from one of the 50 odd family health doctors at the clinic, they are booked an appointment with Tomlinson. She helps them file tax returns, figures out which benefits they are eligible for, and advises them on retraining programs that might help them land a more lucrative job.
Obviously anything that has to do with allocating public resources (or deciding what resources are public) is a political issue, but adding professional medical endorsement to strengthening the welfare state and income security can only be positive. If it becomes "common sense preventative health care" it might be easier to overcome certain opposition to redistributive policies (I'm perfectly willing to fight for social democracy and ultimately socialism too - but I would still be happy to have more centrist backing for the welfare state in the mean time).
The article goes on to talk about lessons learned from an experiment in the 1970's where the residents of Dauphin, Manitoba were all given a guaranteed yearly income:
The program coincided with an 8.5 per cent drop in hospital admissions. Doctors encountered fewer mental health problems. Accidents and injuries in the town declined, a sign that residents were under less pressure to work sometimes dangerous jobs when sick or fatigued.
This is where I would like to see us head eventually. If we are going to maintain some kind of market economy in a world of increasing productivity, automation, and neoliberal globalization, workers are going to be under ever worsening stress as economic security becomes more and more scarce. A guaranteed basic income is really the minimum that will be needed to have a healthy society, and economic security should be seen as integral to a complete health care system.
Read the full article.