NDP leader's healthcare concerns front and centre during Vancouver Island tour
Hot off a week-long Vancouver Island tour on the state of healthcare, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says protecting Canada's public health system is a top priority in the coming year.
As Parliament returned Monday, Singh said he expects to have a one-on-one conversation with Justin Trudeau to raise concerns about the threat of privatization and the acute lack of health-care workers that are hobbling communities and hospitals across the country.
Wrapping his tour in Victoria on Friday, Singh said he'll use the next sitting to rebuild, protect and find solutions for public healthcare.
“The public health-care system Canadians take pride in is at a watershed moment,” he said, pointing to Ontario and Alberta, which have announced they'll shift some surgeries to for-profit clinics to ease the burden on public hospitals.
But those schemes will simply drain already poorly staffed emergency and operating rooms at public facilities, making wait times even worse, he added.
After visiting various communities, including Campbell River, Comox, Nanaimo, Duncan and Port Alberni, Singh said the key message on the ground is there simply aren't enough health-care workers, whether at hospitals or long-term care facilities.
“Healthcare is getting really squeezed,” Singh told Canada's National Observer as his tour ended.
“People aren't getting the care that they need, and workers feel like they're not delivering the care they were trained to deliver.”
People are seeing long waits in emergency rooms or they can't find doctors, and emergency rooms are being shut down because there's not enough staff, Singh added.
Singh visited Campbell River, in NDP MP Rachel Blaney's riding, where three rural ERs in the North Island health region have faced repeated and prolonged closures. During Singh's tour, Blaney called on the federal government to develop strategies that attract and retain medical professionals in rural and remote communities.
These areas need recruitment and retention solutions that are different from urban centres, she said, adding the federal government doesn't have plans to get immigrant health-care workers working and living in remote regions.
The B.C. government announced $30 million in funding for immediate measures to stabilize healthcare in the region Friday, but the cash infusion isn't expected to immediately solve the staffing crisis.
There's got to be a national approach to recruiting, retaining and training health-care workers, Singh said, otherwise provinces are left trying to poach medical professionals from one another.
“That's just going to create a revolving door problem,” he said.
The federal government needs to get behind the push to train more medical professionals, he added. “We need to train a whole new generation of workers to open up more facilities and spaces in colleges and universities.”
There could be more effort to re-engage burnt-out workers, nurses and doctors who left the system during or after the pandemic by paying more attention to working conditions.
“And we need to retain those we already have to make sure those workers don't leave,” he said.
Aside from stepping up with more money for provinces, Ottawa also needs to speed up the recognition of internationally trained medical professionals, he added.
Currently, potential candidates have to deal with different layers of time-consuming, expensive provincial and national licensing bodies.
A streamlined national process applied across all provinces would speed up the integration of internationally trained professionals across the country, he said.
“We haven't really put any attention towards recognizing their international training or made it easy enough for people already living here to even consider doing it.”
Fast-tracking medical professionals applying for permanent residency in Canada and matching them with communities where health-care workers are needed are ways to realize the full potential of immigrants with medical training, he said.
Internationally trained professionals aside, the federal government needs to push for a national licensing system for Canadian professionals as well.
Many medical professionals in Canada are restricted to practising in a single territory or province, and obtaining other licences is often a long and expensive process. A pan-Canadian licensing system could ease the pressure on medical workers in rural and remote communities, Singh added.
“It would help folks who might want to work in rural communities across provincial boundaries or develop creative solutions with workers moving between multiple communities to fill in any gaps,” he said.
“We need to find ways to allow for flexibility in the workforce so that health-care workers can work across the country.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Security guard shot, seriously injured outside of Drake's Toronto mansion
A security guard working at Drake’s Bridle Path mansion in Toronto was seriously injured in a shooting outside the residence early Tuesday morning, police said.
King Charles too busy to see son Prince Harry during U.K. trip
Prince Harry will not be seeing his father King Charles during his current visit to Britain as the monarch will be too busy, Harry's spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Your body needs these three forms of movement every week
Movement is movement, right? Not exactly. Here’s what your body is looking for in addition to your morning walk or yoga session, according to experts.
'It looked so legit': Ontario man pays $7,700 for luxury villa found on Booking.com, but the listing was fake
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Canadian cadets rock mullets and place second at U.S. military competition
Sporting mullets, Canadian Armed Forces officer cadets placed second in an annual military skills competition in the U.S.
The Met Gala was in full bloom with Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Mindy Kaling among the standout stars
The Met Gala and its fashionista A-listers on Monday included Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya and a parade of others in a swirl of flora and fauna looks on a green-tinged carpet lined by live foliage.
Quebec to limit sperm donations per donor after 3 men from same family father hundreds of children
Quebec is looking at tightening the regulations around sperm donation in the province following the release of a documentary that revealed three men from the same family fathered hundreds of children.
How to overcome 'savings guilt' when you're living paycheque to paycheque
As the higher cost of living continues to squeeze household budgets, many Canadians find they have even less left over at the end of every month to squirrel away for the future.
There's actually no such thing as vegetables. Here's why you should eat them anyway
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway. While the term fruit is recognized botanically as anything that contains a seed or seeds, vegetable is actually a broad umbrella term.