OTAWA – The federal government is set to submit a budget on Thursday as part of a number of national and international emergencies and major funding commitments.
Leading this list is Canada’s healthcare systems, which are on the brink of collapse two years after the pandemic and are likely to continue to struggle under the weight of huge delays in surgery.
While many of the problems the government wants to solve require multibillion-dollar solutions, groups representing health workers say their basic request is relatively cheap: they want a plan.
“This crisis of human health resources is becoming extremely extreme and is dramatically affecting our ability to care for people,” she said.  Katharine Smart, President of the Canadian Medical Association.
Doctors, nurses and other health workers have reduced their hours and are leaving the industry en masse, their unions say, but there is no national plan to estimate exactly how many have been lost or how to replace them.
Several teams, including the CMA, have gathered to call on the federal government to pursue a human resources strategy, or even an organization, that will measure, monitor, train and retain health professionals to maintain Canada’s systems. in life.
“It does not make sense in 2022 not to know how many personal care workers we have in this country.  “We do not know how many nurses will retire,” said Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses.
Health professionals have been asking the federal government for a data-driven plan for a decade, Silas said.
“We warned them, ‘You will have another shortage,'” Silas said.  “If we want to continue to support our favorite program, we must support its workforce.”
Smart said the initial cost to get the idea started would be as low as $ 2 million – an insignificant amount within the federal budget.  That relatively small amount could mean the government will make more money later and the Canadians will have a better system, he said.
“You can finance it, you can finance it, you can finance it, but what are the results we have?  What is the quality?  “How do we ensure that our system works in such a way that these investments really reap the benefits for Canadians?”  he said.
This does not mean that the government is not planning significant expenditures to deal with the effects of COVID-19 and any future waves of the virus.
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced a lump sum of $ 2 billion to help provinces deal with the thousands of surgeries and procedures delayed during the pandemic.
Provinces, while grateful for the lump sums, have shouted for a steady increase in federal health transfers so they can make more systemic improvements to their systems.
The country’s prime ministers have repeatedly called on the federal government to increase its share of health care costs to 35 percent from 22 percent – an increase of about $ 28 billion.
They also called for minimal funding increases of five per cent a year, arguing that the current three per cent means that transport does not keep pace with annual cost increases.
“We hope the federal budget will have a stronger commitment to help us meet the demands of our health care system through increased, predictable and sustainable federal funding from Canada Health Transfer,” said Selina Robinson, USA.  Financing.
It is unclear whether sustainable funding for health will make the budget, as Prime Minister Justin Trinto has in the past signaled that he intends to wait until the COVID-19 crisis is over before negotiations with the provinces and territories begin.
Instead, the ruling party has invested more targeted funds, such as $ 250 million in recent elections, to expand access to family doctors and primary care teams by 2022.
It is the kind of fund to which the provinces have been recruited because it threatens to invade their jurisdiction.
Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews says he is particularly concerned about the government’s proposed dental and pharmaceutical care plans, which could be transferred to provincial governments.
“The whole initiative there could again be imposed on our provincial jurisdiction and eventually let the provinces hold the bag for the long term,” Toews said.
The government is expected to make a significant investment in dental care this budget, as a condition of the Liberals’ agreement with the NDP to keep the government in power until 2025. Details have not yet been made public.
The government needs to be careful about the future of Canadian healthcare as it faces COVID-19 while developing the system, Smart said.
“I think the worrying thing is that you just keep adding, but you haven’t really laid the groundwork,” he said.
So far, he said, the government seems to understand that Canada can not solve its healthcare problems without tackling the crisis on the front lines.
He said money was needed in Thursday’s budget, as health professionals could not be trained overnight.
“I think we’re neglecting these fundamental issues (and) they will come back to haunt you later,” Smart said.
– With files from Jordan Press