Health care is the No. 1 priority

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/05/2024 (511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As you will most certainly recall, no issue dominated our doorstep conversations during last fall’s election campaign more than the state of the health-care system under the previous government.

While what took seven years to tear down won’t be repaired overnight, but I’m proud to say that Budget 2024 is a significant beginning to that work. We’ve started by investing a record $8.2 billion in health, seniors and long-term care programming. That represents a 13.5 per cent increase in funding, with much of it targeted at closing critical systemic gaps, and ending the inefficiencies brought on by years of relentless philosophical cuts.

We recognize that at the core of our health challenges is a critical staffing shortage. So

we’ve allocated $310 million for the retention, recruitment and training of front-line health care professionals – a commitment that sets us on a pace to hire 1,000 more health care workers over the next year – 100 doctors, 210 nurses, 90 paramedics and 600 health-care aides to work in home care, personal care homes, hospitals and community health settings.

To help make that an achievable goal, significant investments are also being made at the post-secondary level to increase training opportunities in key areas. For example, we’re expanding Manitoba’s undergraduate medical education program. We’re training more specialists by expanding post-graduate medical education by increasing medical residency spaces. We’re training more nurses by investing in six post-secondary institutions, funding year two of the nurse diploma program at the Neepawa Training Centre, and we’re training more practical nurses.

But there’s more. There’s the advanced paramedic training at Red River College. We’re creating a pathway to train doctors at Brandon University, expanding the Bannatyne campus of the University of Manitoba, where we’ll train more health-care professionals, and we’re fast tracking the accreditation of foreign-trained health workers, already here and ready to go to work.

It’s critical to understand that this plan – this budget – didn’t come out of thin air. It was built on a solid foundation of months of direct consultation with Manitobans, with health-care professionals, post-secondary institutions and experts in the future of health. That’s the only path forward to a better health-care system.

Finally, it’s also important to know that we’re doing something else the previous government never did. We’re actually working with the federal government to find ways to improve our health-care system. When governments spend all their time fighting with each other, Manitoba families lose.

I’m incredibly proud to be a part of a government team whose focus is working with, engaging with, Manitobans to build a better province for everyone. Budget 2024 begins that process.