Toronto doctor Gary Bloch is making a house call to Vancouver this week, and he’s come armed with a prescription for poverty.
The outspoken family physician treats some of Toronto’s poorest people at St. Michael’s Hospital. He’d like to see a political shift in how we view poverty: as a health problem that could be prevented through policies like a guaranteed annual income, raising the minimum wage and raising basic welfare rates.
“The common illnesses are more common in poor people,” Bloch said.
“So something like diabetes, which is becoming more common in our society, is that much more common.”
The same goes with illnesses like heart disease and cancer, Bloch said, not to mention a tragically reduced life expectancy.
“I am no longer surprised when I see someone come into my office who has been living in extreme poverty and is diagnosed with some terrible form of cancer in their mid-forties.”
Bloch argues that working on reducing poverty could actually save money in the long term, through reducing costs in areas like health care and criminal justice.
Anita Huberman, CEO of the Surrey Board of Trade (SBOT), will be hosting a talk Bloch will give on September 23 in Vancouver. SBOT has been working with the City of Surrey on poverty, and has called on the provincial and federal governments to adopt an official poverty reduction strategy.
"Poverty increases health care costs, policing burdens, diminished educational outcomes," Huberman said. "When we have a skill shortage, labour shortage issue not only provincially but nationally, we want to try to maximize the full labour productivity of all of our citizens."
Bloch will be speaking at several events in Vancouver today and tomorrow, as well as to British Columbia mayors and councillors gathered at the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in Whistler. The events are sponsored by the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition.
