Health care industry experts were divided in their assessments
of Tuesday's speech from the throne.
Reducing wait-times for critical health care services was one of
the key issues outlined in Governor-General, Michaelle Jean's
speech. Jean said that government will "engage" a national
wait-times guarantee for services that are deemed medically
necessary.
"This guarantee will make sure that all Canadians receive
essential medical treatment within clinically acceptable waiting
times," she said.
Canadian Medical Association (CMA) president Dr. Ruth
Collins-Nakai, said the CMA is encouraged by some of the messages
they heard in the speech, particularly the focus on wait- times
guarantees.
"From the CMA perspective and based on polling we've conducted,
wait-time guarantees is still the number one issue for Canadians,
and they want action on it," said Collins-Nakai. "So we're pleased
to see the government is sticking to its guns on this
commitment."
However, Collins-Nakai said the provinces each define what they
perceive to be medically necessary. "The term medically necessary
services are shorthand for what the provinces will cover."
While the CMA may be encouraged, the Canadian Union of Public
Employees (CUPE) is apprehensive.
National president of CUPE Paul Moist said he was more concerned
about what the speech didn't say about wait-times.
"We had hoped to see something about the Canada Health Act with
respect to enforcement of the Act, and that we would work on wait
times under the realm of the Act," Moist said. "Half of that was in
there, and the other half wasn't."
While the speech did mention the Canada Health Act, it was only
in reference to the government wanting to support innovative
approaches to health care, according to Moist.
"And the innovation thing doesn't do it for us," he said.
"Another issue the speech didn't mention with respect to
wait-times, was that of human resources in health care."
Development and retention of health care professionals is as
much a part of the solution to wait-times as lack of space and
capacity in operating theatres in the public sector is, he
said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Collins-Nakai who said the CMA does
not feel wait-times will be able to be reduced as long as there is
a shortage of personnel within health care.
"We're pushing (the government) very hard to look at what are
called health human resources in the whole health sector," she
said. "Wait times are a surrogate of what ails the health care
system."
Fixing wait-times means fixing not just how long patients wait,
but it means making fixes to the system in order to make it
sustainable long-term, she said.
Moist said CUPE has requested a direct meeting with the minister
of health, Tony Clement.
"There's some indication that through the Canadian Labour
Congress, we're going to be sitting down with Prime Minister Harper
and senior cabinet minister's first," Moist said. "I would expect
health care to be the number one issue on our plate."
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