The prime minister has repeatedly said that the best time to talk about health transfers to the provinces is after the pandemic subsides, which means now, Prime Minister John Horgan said in Saskatchewan on Friday.
The prime minister has repeatedly said that the best time to talk about health transfers to the provinces is after the pandemic subsides, which means now, Prime Minister John Horgan said in Saskatchewan on Friday.
“Well, we’re here today, the pandemic is weakening, it’s becoming endemic, and it’s time to have this conversation,” said Horgan, who attended a meeting of Western Canadian provincial and territorial leaders in Regina. “I hope today will be the beginning of this commitment to come with us.”
This is the first personal meeting for Western prime ministers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and federal health transfers and post-COVID recovery are at the top of the agenda.
Last year, prime ministers asked Ottawa for a $ 28 billion increase in health transfers, which would lead to 35 percent of the federal government’s 22 percent share. At the 2021 conference of prime ministers, which he attended virtually, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the goal was to increase transfers, but talks would have to take place after the pandemic ended.
About 900,000 British Colombians are without a family doctor, including about 100,000 in the South Island, and a recent report from the Medimap Clinics Directory says Victoria has waited the longest in Canada for clinics to visit. About four clinics have closed in the Sofia region since January, largely as a result of staffing problems. Temporary funding of $ 3.46 million was granted to keep five more open.
Emergency and primary care centers have been set up as part of a larger plan to meet primary care needs, but they do not have sufficient staff. At the center of the Victoria UPCC, 45.66 full-time equivalent positions are funded, but less than half – 21.61 – are occupied. Nanaimo’s UPCC funds 16.83 FTE positions, but only 5.73 have staff.
British liberal health critic Shirley Bond recently said that less than two percent of people who do not have a doctor have been attached to one through the UPCC.
The province has about 6,800 trained family doctors, but only about 3,500 practice this role, according to Family Doctors for Better Patient Care in BC
On Friday, Horgan blamed the primary care crisis largely on insufficient federal funding.
“We have a shortage of general practitioners due to funding challenges. Is it just about money? Yes, it’s about money, because money becomes a service to people.
In Victoria, he said, “we have more 70-year-old doctors with panels of 80-year-old patients than anywhere else in the country.”
Horgan expressed disappointment that although there have been many discussions about reaching the table with the federal government on health transfers, “we are not at the table.”
“Ottawa needs to get back in the game is to be full partners, and we don’t even want full partners – we want two-thirds partners in the implementation of the most important national program we have. ”
Horgan said he is in a unique position not only to see the challenges of the healthcare system as prime minister, but also as a patient, after being diagnosed with throat cancer late last year and successfully completing radiation therapy.
The workload of health workers in British Columbia is “duplicated across the country,” Horgan said, adding that for two years, Canadians have watched health workers go through extraordinary times. “And now is the time to go back to the system and say, ‘We will rejuvenate and propose new human resources development initiatives so that we can have more providers of care for the challenges of an aging population.’
“We don’t have to wait any longer to do what society expects of us.
Horgan said that once BC receives a commitment to long-term, sustainable health funding from Ottawa, the province can “ensure that we create spaces or train the next generation of health workers to provide those services that people need.”
In addition to tackling the waiting time for surgery and diagnostics, which increased during the pandemic, the prime ministers want to see the money go to mental health initiatives, substance use and long-term care.
The federal government has signed agreements with many provinces to meet those needs, but Saskatchewan’s Prime Minister Scott Mo, the host of the meeting, said it was not viable in the long run. “We don’t know if this funding will be available in two years, five years, seven years.”
Horgan, who raised the issue of federal health transfers with Trudeau while he was in British Columbia earlier this week, noted on Friday that underfunding of health care began long before the current federal and provincial governments.
The Federation Council, composed of the prime ministers of each of Canada’s provinces and territories, is scheduled to meet in Victoria on July 11-12.
Horgan and Mo were joined in Regina by their counterparts from Alberta, Manitoba, Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
The prime ministers also plan to discuss economic recovery, energy security, labor and immigration.
ceharnett@timescolonist.com
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