Canada’s premiers renew call for new health-care partnership with feds
Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok says increasing Canada Health Transfer will benefit Inuit who travel for specialized care
Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok was part of the conference held by Canada’s 13 premiers Friday. He said additional Canada Health Transfer funding would help Inuit who travel out of the territory for specialized care. (Screenshot via the Council of Federation’s YouTube channel)
Canada’s 13 premiers reiterated their call for a new health-care partnership with the federal government in a news conference Friday.
Following a meeting in Winnipeg, they called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to increase the federal government’s contribution to the Canada Health Transfer to 35 per cent from 22 per cent.
They are requesting the Trudeau government to pay an additional $27.6 billion annually as part of this transfer, according to a February 2021 report from Canada’s provincial and territorial finance ministers.
The largest federal transfer to provinces and territories, the CHT provides long-term funding for health care across the country.
Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok said additional federal funding would especially help Inuit who travel out of the territory for specialized care.
“With do have this remoteness that we see across Nunavut, and the reliance we have on our southern partners is enormous,” he said at the conference.
Akeeagok said increased funding would benefit “every Nunavummiut who requires these specialized services that unfortunately we don’t have the capacity to do right here in Nunavut.”
He added, “The significance and the importance is there for us to support the unified voices we’re seeing right across the 13 premiers here.”
Premiers said they want to meet with Trudeau early in 2023 to ensure a conversation about CHT funding is included in Ottawa’s spring 2023 budget.
There was no official response from the federal government as of Friday afternoon.
This is a pretty rich demand given the fact that ALL of the provincial conservative governments have consistently cut health care funding throughout their political tenures. If I were the Feds I would tell the Premiers to pound sand.
Patient’s who understand and speaks English. Why do they need 2 or 3 escorts. Even the kids go with an escort. That is a lot of money. Something is very wrong. The people who have lost a loved one. In Iqaluit, they need to have a garage sell at the elders building so the one who have died can be back home. Something is wrong there. Why not have a meeting all about that with a Health Minister. You have an idea what is going on there?.
Why do English speaking patients (including children) require escorts? Maybe because it’s dangerous and irresponsible to leave individuals, ESPECIALLY KIDS, alone after serious medical procedures. Give your head a shake!
if you read the comment, he said 2-3 escorts, not just one. It’s reasonable to have one escort but not 2-3 escorts.
The way Nunavut Health is run is a damn shame. So much waste. So much ineffiency. Canada should let us fail for a few years to smarten up the GN into changing its ways. More money just enables the low standards this government strives for: mediocrity.
I don’t think the government strives for mediocrity, it just lands there consistently based on the rules that were invented for its game (among other things).
The last time my manager demanded a sick note for a single day absence the doctor I saw and every other doctor in that hall way was out of sick note. My doctor had to go to reception to have more printed. It was 10:15 in the morning.
I would imagine that notes for sick leave are probably one of the bigger drains on our system.
Racial based healthcare needs to stop. In the earlier sentence, the premier mentioned need for funding for Inuit who travel out of the territory for care. In another sentence, he mentioned Nunavumiut, I hope this also means non inuit who are in Nunavut. As it stands right now, all Inuit are under the NIHB plan where they don’t even pay for tylenol. And this is not income based, an Inuk making $300K / a year gets the same benefits as an Inuk who are on welfare. Those wealthy Inuk going down for medical are not staying at the Larga though this is made available. They are staying in cushy hotels.
“…those wealthy Inuk…”
I don’t know many “wealthy” Inuit. Do you mean Inuit who are employed and have benefits through their employers? They stay in “cushy” (average) hotels because they have benefits through their work. If you had those benefits and paid into them and paid union dues, would you choose to stay in a hotel, or at Larga? If a non-Inuk is entitled to stay in a hotel because their employee benefits provide that coverage, why would an Inuk employee not be entitled to the same thing?
One of the most wasteful spends in Canada is on health care. Low productivity, high wages, underused and misused assets, poor administration, politics within the system, and politics outside are the major contributors to the mess.
Perpetuating factors are low expectations and high complacency of one part of the population and chronic self-imposed unhealthiness of another demographic who expect the medical system to care for their bodies in the same way they expect a mechanic to repair their abused automobiles.
Without encouraging private health care as a viable option to the present sick-system we are doomed to further degradation.
Ottawa… money-mi?