Fixing health care is about more than money

It’s clear when I talk to constituents in Tyndall Park that what they want is quality health care close to home, which is something that consecutive provincial governments have not been able to deliver. Instead, provincial governments seem to want to blame Ottawa and not accept the fact that our current health crisis exists in good part because of decisions they continue to make at the provincial level.

Yes, we need more money from Ottawa and I constantly relay this message to federal politicians. But Ottawa is more than just an ATM machine – the federal government wants better results and Manitobans deserve them.

The federal government has stated that it needs a simple guarantee that money will be invested in dedicated streams of public health care, however, premiers across Canada refused. And we must question why. Both Manitoba and Ontario are talking about investing more in private health care and sending patients out-of-province for surgeries and procedures, rather than investing in public health care.

Money is not the only issue, but it’s often the excuse for poor health-care resource management. We need to look at how we are spending tax dollars to support our public health-care system. It wasn’t very long ago that we didn’t have regional health-care authorities, and it seems to me we are spending more and more on health-care bureaucracy and less on bedside care.

Meeting community-based health-care needs seems to be taking a backseat to a growing bureaucracy and costly institutional health care. Based on what those working in health care share with me, we could be doing a much better job of spending health dollars. For instance, if we invest more in home-care services, long-term care facilities or mental health, we could save more in other areas of healthcare services. With better access to mental health supports, or access to diabetes resources, we could cut the number of people visiting emergency rooms across the province. This is about focusing on prevention and addressing issues before they become emergencies.

Despite being warned against it, the current premier (who is also the former health minister) decided to go ahead with drastic changes and close emergency rooms across the province prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This left us in a vulnerable situation and the people who suffered the most were patients and health-care workers. As a result, many health-care workers have left the system.

I strongly believe that we need to be investing in and attracting health-care workers. We need to be better supporting those who are currently here by recognizing credentials and providing courses that will enable upgrading in faster, more efficient ways.

If we listen to health-care professionals and treat workers better by also offering better incentives, we will start to grow our capacity here in Manitoba and we will all be better off.

I love our public health-care system in principle, and I will do whatever I can to make sure it will be there for our future generations.

Cindy Lamoureux
Tyndall Park constituency report

Cindy Lamoureux is the Liberal MLA for Tyndall Park.

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