The Manitoba government’s focus on health care — a key part of the NDP election campaign last fall — is getting some help from the feds, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Wab Kinew announced in Winnipeg.
The two leaders signed a health-care agreement Thursday, after agreeing in principle on a plan last year.
Through the new agreement, the federal government will provide around $434 million to support Manitoba’s three-year action plan to improve health care, and to help achieve the government’s goal of hiring hundreds of doctors, nurses, paramedics, and homecare workers.
An additional $199 million is also coming to Manitoba to support the province’s five-year action plan to improve care for seniors.
“Canadians value universal public health care,” Trudeau said. “That’s why we’re signing agreements with provinces and territories to make health care work better for Canadians.
“Today’s agreements with Manitoba will help hire more health workers, reduce wait times, support seniors, and make sure Canadians get the care they need, when they need it.”
The announcement marked the first in-person meeting between Trudeau and Kinew, and the premier said getting federal backing for health care is a positive step toward accomplishing those goals.
“I’m happy, because health care is our government’s top priority… and to have the federal government commit that we are going to walk on this path to ensure that there’s more doctors and nurses for you is good news for the province,” Kinew said.
“Having more nurses, more allied health professionals, more physicians in the province… means that we’re going to be able to reduce wait times. It means that the crisis we see today, after years of PC closures in the emergency rooms, is going to start to turn a corner.”
Doctors Manitoba Board Chair, Candace Bradshaw, said recruitment and retention is a major issue in the province. She said while 400 more physicians won’t get Manitoba to the national average of doctors per capita, it will still have a significant impact.
“We don’t have very good statistics. We hear a lot of commitment today to improving those stats, (and) getting more physicians on board,” she said.
A new report published by Get Well Canada and Generation Squeeze, says it’s not necessarily more care providers that are needed–though that certainly helps.
“We already have more doctors now, including more family physicians, than we have ever had in this country,” said Dr. Paul Kershaw, co-author of the report.
Instead, Kershaw said funds need to be put into social causes.
“Health care begins where we’re born, grow, live, work and age. As long as we don’t have safe, affordable homes or quality childcare, or enough income, or a stable climate, a good medical care system will never be enough to prevent people from being injured, or (falling) sick, or dying early,” he said.
“In Manitoba, and from coast to coast, we’ve left our health care system incomplete because we’ve disproportionately been focusing on the medicine side. Then, we’re frustrated that we’re putting the money into medical care, but our access isn’t getting any better.”
Even with more doctors, Kershaw said it doesn’t matter because the line of patients will continue to grow if social issues aren’t addressed.
The same goes for funding senior care.
“Today’s funds–which matter for the long-term care of an again population–will actual continue to amplify a trend where we invest more in the older residents of our provinces than we do in younger folks,” he said, adding that’s not sustainable.
However, he said the NDPs are not likely to know this, “because their budget doesn’t yet include an age analysis.”
Even Kershaw says the finds may not be going to root problems, he commends the commitments of the governments to bettering health care.
Manitoba Nurses Union, Darlene Jackson said she is also thrilled with the commitment.
“We keep announcing new beds opening, and I think this is a great way of staffing those beds,” she said, adding she is not sure if it’s enough, but she looks forward to future conversations to see how the funds will be spent.
“I think we’ll have to see how things go,” Jackson said. “We are in a critical nursing shortage. We do need more nurses.”
The province and Ottawa said they’re working together to remove barriers for doctors and health professionals from around the world to come to Manitoba.
Prior to Thursday’s announcement, Kinew told 680 CJOB’s The Start that Manitoba is focused on cutting down bureaucracy for internationally trained workers, as the province attempts to shore up staffing in the industry.
“There are people in Manitoba right now who are working — maybe as an aide — but could be working as a nurse if we move that along. So that’s one of the other priorities we’ll be focusing on with this,” he said.
“Every one of these cases has a unique and complex explanation, but at the end of the day, it’s just bureaucracy. We’re saying ‘let’s just cut through the excuses… let’s focus on solutions instead of excuses’.”
The agreement is similar to deals signed by other provinces. Ontario signed earlier this month for $3.1 billion in federal health-care funding over three years, with a focus on increasing access to family doctors, reducing backlogs and adding more health-care workers.
Manitoba is the seventh province or territory to formally sign on to the accord, following British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario and the Northwest Territories.
With files from The Canadian Press