“We need certainty,” Premier Doug Ford says in response to the proposed health deal
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said his government is “confident” that an agreement is on the way after the federal government’s proposal to spend $196.1 billion on health care over the next decade.
“We’re grateful for the offer, we’re grateful we sat down with the Prime Minister, but we want sustainability, we need certainty, not just for a few years, five or 10 years, but for decades to come,” he said Ford Reporter in Queen’s Park on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the plan, which would see provinces and territories receive an additional $2 billion unconditionally under the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) to “relieve immediate pressure on the healthcare system, particularly in children’s hospitals, Emergency departments and surgical and diagnostic backlogs.”
That figure fell short of the $28 billion annual CHT increase that the prime ministers had called for.
Ford said he intends to review the deal with his prime ministers, and a spokeswoman for Health Secretary Sylvia Jones said Ford and Jones have Thursday meetings with Federal Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc and Federal Health Secretary Jean-Yves Duclos , planned.
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“Honestly, I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more of a focus on community care and home care,” Jones said Wednesday during an announcement on home care spending.
“For me, it’s a very natural place to start improving and enhancing the patient experience.”
Federal money needed for team-based care, doctor says
dr Danielle Martin, chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, told CBC radio Metro morning that about a third of Ontario residents have access to a model where physicians work in groups with nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare providers.
“It’s a team-based model that’s much more effective at giving people quick access than a single vendor model, and it costs money.”
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Ontario recently announced $30 million in new funding for health team creation. Martin says money would add about 18 new teams to the existing system.
“We’re going to need a lot more, probably at least ten times as much,” she said.
Additionally, the distribution of teams is uneven across Ontario, Martin says. In Toronto, some neighborhoods have access to multiple team-based care options. However, Scarborough has almost none, she says.
For that reason, Martin says the new federal funding must help bridge the gap to ensure all Ontario residents have access to the same model of care.
Ex-health minister calls proposal ‘disappointing’
dr Jane Philpott, who was federal health secretary when a deal was last struck with the provinces, called Trudeau’s proposal “unconvincing” and “not really what Canadians have been waiting for.”
“Canadians have been waiting for some kind of vision, some kind of idea of how our healthcare system could be improved,” said Philpott, currently dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and director of the School of Medicine at Queen’s University.
“Many of us on the front lines of care have been saying for a very long time that we need to fix some of the fundamental ways that our systems are designed,” she told CBC Metro morning.
“One of the loudest talks in recent months is that there are now 6.5 million Canadians who do not have a doctor or other family carer.”
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The federal proposal also includes $25 billion in targeted funding for primary care physicians, mental health, surgical residues and health record systems.
Negotiations on a new health agreement for the provinces have been going on for two years. The prime ministers had insisted that no new money would come with any strings attached. But Ford backed that stance last month, saying the province would commit to sharing health data and outcomes for a national database, which the federal government wanted.
On Tuesday, Ontario’s tax watchdog said the province has a $5 billion healthcare funding shortfall but a large billion-dollar emergency fund that could cover that amount if they chose to.
