Trudeau just isn’t prepared to kick health-care reform down the street

OTTAWA –

The federal and provincial governments seem deadlocked of their negotiations on the way forward for well being care in Canada, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s newest feedback recommend he won’t be the one to blink first.

In a year-end interview with The Canadian Press Monday, Trudeau stated he is not prepared to kick health-care reform down the street any additional, at the same time as provincial premiers clamour for extra federal funds to bolster their ailing well being methods.

“It would not be the best factor to do to simply throw more cash on the drawback and sit again and watch the issue not get mounted as a result of we did not use this second to say, ‘No, no, no, it is time to enhance the system,”‘ Trudeau stated.

The stalemate is going on whereas youngsters’s hospitals throughout the nation are inundated with youngsters affected by respiratory ailments. In some circumstances hospitals have been overwhelmed by the calamitous mixture of file numbers of sick sufferers and critically low numbers of workers to deal with them.

The issue goes again greater than a yr, when provinces first demanded a sit-down with the prime minister to speak about long-term and sustainable funding after the pandemic elevated pressure left them with massive backlogs and a burnt-out workforce.

They wish to see Ottawa cowl 35 per cent of health-care prices throughout the nation, up from the present 22 per cent, by growing the Canada Well being Switch.

Trudeau advised these within the discussions that they need to wait till after the pandemic, however devoted $2 billion in one-time funding to tide them over throughout the Omicron wave.

Now the prime minister says the system wants reform, and he is not going to surrender the cash except the provinces commit to vary.

“Canadians are proper to take a look at all of the orders of the federal government and say, ‘That is horrible, you guys really want to resolve this,” Trudeau stated.

Well being Minister Jean-Yves Duclos made an overture to the provinces final month, providing a rise to the federal well being switch in trade for improved information sharing throughout the nation.

The assembly ended with out progress.

Imposing efficiency measures on the Canada Well being Switch to provinces is kind of remarkable, stated Haizhen Mou, a professor on the College of Saskatchewan who research well being coverage.

It is comprehensible that provincial leaders do not wish to change that precedent, he stated in an interview Tuesday.

“I do not suppose the federal authorities has the best to impose such efficiency indicators on the broad type of well being transfers,” she stated, however added that she understands why the Liberals do not wish to proceed to place cash towards a system that is not working.

A extra politically palatable scenario could be to supply focused funds for particular priorities and signal particular person agreements with every province, she stated, moderately than treating them as a bunch.

That is what the Paul Martin authorities did in 2005 to deal with wait occasions, and what Trudeau did in 2016 to fund psychological well being and homecare companies within the face of comparable circumstances.

In 2016 the provinces have been united as they pushed for an unconditional enhance to the well being switch, “however ultimately they broke aside, the alliance broke,” Mou stated.

The federal government signed a bilateral settlement with New Brunswick and different provinces adopted swimsuit. Mou thinks its solely a matter of time earlier than that occurs once more.

“I am unsure how lengthy they’ll maintain out as a result of the income, the ability of the fiscal capability, remains to be within the federal authorities’s arms,” she stated.

Well being-care advocates, together with nurses and medical doctors’ associations, have echoed Trudeau’s name for a plan to remodel Canada’s damaged system and to do it rapidly.

“Affected person care is struggling whereas health-care working circumstances for nurses and different well being employees are deteriorating,” stated Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions president Linda Silas, after talks between well being ministers ended final month.

“It’s completely essential that we put apart politicking and get all the way down to productive discussions round concrete options to the health-care staffing disaster.”

Trudeau was requested Monday how he plans to kick-start the negotiations if he will not sit down with premiers, however he seems to really feel it is as much as provincial and territorial leaders to take the subsequent step.

“We’re completely prepared to take a position far more in well being care, however there needs to be clear commitments and outcomes which might be going to vary issues for Canadians,” he stated.


This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Dec. 13, 2022.

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