Tories’ finger-pointing on health care a bit rich

At the beginning of the spring legislative session last week, Progressive Conservative Leader Obby Khan and his health critic, MLA Kathleen Cook, demanded the NDP government launch a public inquiry to determine why four Manitobans died while waiting for treatment in backlogged emergency rooms.

“If we’re talking about these most recent deaths, those all happened in Winnipeg ERs,” Cook said. “We should be looking at the systemic issues that lead to long wait times because it’s very easy for a politician to go out and say, ‘We’re going to do this and I’m going to fix wait times,’ but do they actually understand where the issues are?”

“Is it bed block? Is it a lack of access to primary care? Is it staffing? Likely it’s all of those things and more, but to what extent and what are the solutions?”

That’s a lot to unpack, but let’s start with this: while Khan and Cook are right to raise the four ER deaths, it still may be too soon for the Tories to start pointing fingers.

During their eight years in power, the former PC government systematically underfunded health care at a time when the government was awash in cash owing to economic growth and record increases in transfer payments.

Instead of investing in growing capacity for elective surgeries and adding hospital beds, the Tories tried to value engineer savings in health care by closing several ERs in Winnipeg and re-configuring hospital services.

The intent may have been good, but the execution was woeful.

Not only did the reconfiguration fail to produce savings, the bully tactics used by former premier Brian Pallister led to a profound estrangement with nurses that is still evident today. Upset about being told without consultation about where and when they would work, hundreds of nurses fled from the public sector only to be hired back through nursing agencies to fill the holes created when they left.

The Tories probably could have reversed the damage inflicted by the hospital reorganization but two problems arose. First, COVID-19 struck and the need to provide a rapid emergency response extinguished any interest in systemic reform or rebuilding relationships.

During their eight years in power, the former PC government systematically underfunded health care at a time when the government was awash in cash…

And second, the Tories took record revenues and channelled them into tax cuts. The billions of dollars in forgone government revenue that were returned to Manitobans became very cold comfort when they had to wait two years for a knee replacement.

All that makes it difficult for Khan and his critic to harangue the NDP — something the NDP knows full well.

In response to the demand for a public inquiry into ER deaths, Kinew acknowledged the tragedies but argued his government is still struggling to restore viability to a system that was strangled by the previous PC government.

Kinew is right and wrong in his comments.

Although the Pallister government messed up, it did not invent the physician and nursing shortage. Nor did it conjure the lengthy waits for priority elective surgeries. These are problems with origin stories written by both NDP and PC governments that go back decades, maybe even generations.

Regardless of political stripe, the challenge remains the same for everyone.

The population is still getting older and sicker. The cost of compensating physicians and nurses is skyrocketing, and even with significant increases in fees and salaries, we suffer from a shortage of both. The inability to get timely primary care forces many people into emergency rooms, where they are warehoused because there are not enough beds to handle the patients who need to be admitted to hospital.

It is fair to say the Kinew government is at least trying to make health care a priority, something Pallister never did. However, despite throwing hundreds of millions of new dollars at the system, progress has been modest, to say the least.

Manitoba does not need a public inquiry into ER deaths.

There are more nurses and doctors in the province. At the same time, however, elective surgery and diagnostic service waiting lists are still way too long and nurses continue to “grey-list” hospitals — where nurses are discouraged from working overtime or taking additional shifts— out of concern about safety.

By the end of the NDP’s first term in government, which would normally wrap up in October 2027, there should be tangible progress and much less blame launched at the former Tory government. Based on the amount of money the NDP is channelling into health care, there is a chance we will finally, mercifully see more timely care and less warehousing at ERs.

But there is no assurance the government will accomplish those goals.

Geopolitical conflict, volatile markets, persistent inflation and slow economic growth have already landed Manitoba — and all provinces — in the fiscal glue pot.

Manitoba does not need a public inquiry into ER deaths. What we need is a long-term strategy anchored on sustainable funding with a heavy emphasis on modernization and innovation.

If the NDP government fails to provide all that, it will have become merely the latest in a long string of provincial governments to fall short of a full cure for all that ails health care.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

Dan Lett
Columnist

Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986.  Read more about Dan.

Dan’s columns are built on facts and reactions, but offer his personal views through arguments and analysis. The Free Press’ editing team reviews Dan’s columns before they are posted online or published in print — part of the our tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.