NDP dissolves diagnostic task force

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This article was published 18/11/2023 (1089 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Under a plan to dismantle a provincial medical task force, the NDP government announced that Brandon Regional Health Centre (BRHC) will be adding 75 more spinal surgeries a year, with the promise of hiring another surgeon.

The diagnostic surgical and recovery task force was created by the PC government in December 2021 with a mandate to eliminate procedure backlogs caused in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.

There were 15 people on the task force, including eight physicians who had a budget of $40 million in 2021-22, a $110-million budget in 2022-23 and a $130-million spending authority this year.

On Friday, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told Manitobans that the NDP government will redirect its focus and funding back to public health-care delivery while giving priority to surgeries and diagnostics.

“We have heard loud and clear from patients and front-line health-care staff that it’s time to deliver care here. As we wind down the task force, we will increase surgical and diagnostic capacity here in the province to reduce wait times for Manitobans,” Asagwara said during a news conference from Winnipeg’s Grace Hospital.

Spinal surgeries account for the longest wait times of all procedures in the province. “Many people live in pain for years, waiting for their surgeries,” Asagwara said, and added, “Once the spinal capacity has been fully increased, the current backlog of about 3,000 patients will be eliminated within a year.”

The savings from disbanding the task force will be directed to three new projects to address surgical and diagnostic wait times that have existed in the province for years, said the minister.

One of those projects is an expansion of spinal surgery programs at BRHC, said Brian Schoonbaert, Prairie Mountain Health CEO.

“Not only will the investments being made allow for 75 additional spine surgeries per year at BRHC, but the new funding will help purchase up-to-date equipment that will enable more same day care spine surgeries to be completed. PMH is pleased to have a new second spine surgeon, Dr. Chaudry, recruited to the surgical program as well,” Schoonbaert said in an email to the Sun.

Last month, Premier Kinew “hit the pause button” on the task force, and cited concerns there was a lack of oversight for its spending and decision-making processes.

The PC government signed contracts with the Mayo Clinic and the University of California San Francisco Health to treat Manitoba patients for orthopedic shoulder surgeries, total joint replacement, and cardiac catheterization, sometimes known as an angiogram.

Asagwara said some procedures contracted by the task force in the U.S. cost seven times more than they would have in Manitoba and the province will save $7.5 million a year. Most contracts with health-care centres in the U.S. were untendered, which means there were no other comparative offers.

The task force put private profit over public health-care solutions, said Thomas Linner, Manitoba Health Coalition provincial director, an organization that advocates for the preservation of universal, public health care.

“Today’s announcement is a good first step in the process of repairing the damage of seven years of cuts, chaos and privatization,” said Linner. “But there is much more work to do, from primary care to seniors’ care and beyond, to ensure that we have a public health-care system that works for people, not profit.”

Shared Health, the organization that oversees health-care delivery in the province, will take over management of the task force structure and its contracts as it is dismantled.

Patients scheduled for care under the task force’s direction, and those in the queue, will not see any added delays as the task force’s operations wind down, Asagwara added.

“No one will be left behind. We want Manitobans to know that while we are dissolving the [task force], we will be working more directly with health-care leaders across the province to ensure continued innovation and investment in capacity here in Manitoba,” Asagwara said.

In addition to expanding spinal surgery programs at BRHC, there will also be expansions at Grace Hospital, Concordia Hospital and Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.

A mobile MRI service will be deployed to the Northern Regional Health Authority, which is encouraging news to Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP).

The MAHCP is a union representing move than 7,000 allied health professionals working across Manitoba, including all diagnostic imaging technologists.

“MAHCP is encouraged by today’s commitment to a different approach that builds publicly delivered testing capacity to improve access and bring down wait times, which have risen to 21 weeks for MRI,” Linklater said.

“We have known for a long time what doctors and Shared Health have stated, that Manitoba needs more specialized allied health professionals to perform that testing, and MAHCP is eager to work with the new government to ensure staffing comes first.”

Under the PC government, the task force made progress eliminating the backlog in several areas, including procedures like cataract surgery, imaging tests, and almost 500 out-of-province surgeries.

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