The premiers of the Maritimes and Ontario are calling for better national collaboration — a “Team Canada” approach — in order to solve certain problems in the health system, but none of them are proposing concrete to succeed.
During a press briefing in Moncton, New Brunswick, along with the federal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Dominic LeBlanc, the Premiers argued that the various governments must work together to reduce wait times in hospitals and empty the waiting lists for surgeries.
However, the four prime ministers did not detail how this would materialize.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs believes that changes will have to take place in health care systems, but he did not specify which ones. The goal, he says, is to allow qualified professionals to provide care to Canadians.
“It might not be as individual an approach as having the same doctor all their life, but each person could visit the same clinic all their life,” Higgs said.
The Prime Ministers’ solutions may still be hazy, but the problems on the ground are very clear. Every week, hospitals in the Atlantic provinces are forced to announce temporary closures of their emergency rooms due to a shortage of staff.
In Nova Scotia, for example, the emergency department at Hants Community Hospital in Windsor announced that it was closing at 6 p.m. Monday night and would not reopen until Tuesday morning.
For his part, the Premier of Prince Edward Island, Dennis King, told reporters that the health care system will have to tackle the challenges “of today and tomorrow”.
“The way we deliver health care in Prince Edward Island and across the country will have to be fundamentally different from what was done before,” added Mr. King.
As for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, he thinks that provincial premiers and the federal government should take inspiration from the ideas of nurses, doctors and hospital managers to fix the health care system. He said he was convinced that the experts on the ground would have a “solution”.
“We want to have a collaborative approach with the federal government,” Ford said. We need to form a “Team Canada”. »
According to Higgs, the premiers discussed the issues facing healthcare workers and hospitals.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but we have to be aware that our wheel has to be reinvented,” he explained.
But despite the need for major changes, health care across the country will remain publicly funded, Higgs said.
“Let’s find out where our best practices are and make sure they’re available to everyone. »