PM, premier hail massive health accord

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This article was published 16/02/2024 (580 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — A new $633-million health-care deal served as a backdrop for Premier Wab Kinew and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cement the newfound goodwill between the two levels of government, as each took a swipe at the Tories for the state of Manitoba’s health system on Thursday.

The two leaders appeared in lockstep while announcing bilateral funding agreements totalling more than a half-billion dollars over five years.

“Even as we take pride in our system, there are some real challenges facing our health systems right now,” Trudeau said during an announcement alongside Kinew, following a meeting with students at RRC Polytech.

“It can be too hard to access a family doctor or nurse practitioner, emergency rooms are too often overwhelmed, people are waiting for the surgeries they need and health-care workers are under immense pressure, working in conditions that make it even harder to be there for their patients.”

The pair praised each other’s willingness to collaborate on the new agreements to address shared health priorities and support seniors and long-term care.

“Years of Conservative cuts left Manitoba’s health-care system struggling to protect and care for patients and, of course, health-care workers were pushed to their very limits,” said Trudeau, who described Kinew as an outstanding partner.

The premier, for his part, said the province has friends in Ottawa.

“To have the federal government commit that we are going to walk on this path to ensure that there’s more doctors and more nurses for you is good news for the province of Manitoba,” Kinew said, adding most of the new cash will be directed to bedside care.

“It means that the crisis we see today after years of PC closures in the emergency rooms is going to start to turn a corner.”

Under the “Working Together” bilateral agreement, $1.2 billion will flow into the province over 10 years. Five other premiers have signed such deals with Ottawa.

The tailored agreement is part of a larger health-care funding accord announced in February 2023 to increase the federal contribution to the Canada Health Transfer by $46 billion over the next decade.

The first instalment under the agreement amounts to $434 million over three years, which must be spent on an action plan agreed to by both Ottawa and Manitoba that was released Thursday. The province also signed on to the $199-million, five-year Aging with Dignity agreement to expand home, community and long-term care for seniors.

Kinew said the federal dollars will assist the NDP government to deliver on its election campaign commitment to add more than 1,000 new health-care professionals and cut down on wait times for emergency and surgical care.

The Manitoba government intends to add 200 new doctors and 150 new nurses by the 2025-26 fiscal year, and add at least 150 staffed hospital beds to the system. It also aims to add 1,500 new health-care professionals, with federal funding going toward salaries, and a new physician recruitment campaign targeting rural and northern communities.

In exchange for increasing federal transfers, the Trudeau government demanded provinces demonstrate taxpayer money was being spent on improving patient care and achieving negotiated targets that include reducing ER wait times and the average length of a hospital stay for all patients.

Its provincial nurse float pool must also be expanded to 400 nurses from 113. The number of clinical psychologists working in the public system must also rise by 12 full-time equivalents.

» Winnipeg Free Press