The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) urged Ottawa to quickly deal with the existing shortcomings in the country’s health care system and notably called for increased health transfers to the provinces to do so.
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While the CMA recognizes the importance of having had to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic over the past few years, it now wants lessons learned per se to improve the health system.
“Our health care systems are unable to care for Canadians today,” CMA President Dr. Alika Lafontaine said in a statement Friday.
“It is extremely important to learn from the past, but first we must respond to the collective crises that our thirteen provincial and territorial health systems are experiencing,” he added.
The organization made several recommendations in a report tabled this week, the first being to increase the Canada Health Transfer to better support provincial and territorial systems.
The creation of a pan-Canadian licensing model to encourage physician mobility was also suggested.
“The solutions to the crisis in our health care system do not lie in the siled systems that we have created within the thirteen provinces and territories,” said Dr. Lafontaine.