Vancouver hosts first face-to-face meeting of health ministers in four years

State and territory health ministers are scheduled to meet with federal officials in Vancouver on Monday for the first time in four years to meet face-to-face on the state of health care funding in the country.

The two-day conference, co-chaired by Commonwealth Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix, will focus on health care relocation in Canada. It is the largest major federal transfer to states and territories, funding health care across the country.

Canada’s health care transfers exceeded $42 billion in fiscal 2020-2021. Over the summer, the federal government added a one-time addition of $2 billion to the $45.2 billion that states and territories have said they will receive this year.

States like BC are urging Ottawa to increase medical transfers as they struggle to meet medical demand from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, opioids and mental health crisis.

“It’s been two and a half years since the pandemic, and the overdose public health emergency in B.C. has been going on for over six years,” Dicks said last week. “They have problems in every state in the country and it’s time for the federal government, which has a serious responsibility here, to take that responsibility seriously.”

Watch | CBC’s Rosemary Barton on Adrian Dix and the Health Ministers’ Meeting.

While there are disagreements between Ottawa and the provinces and territories about how much of Canada’s health insurance benefits will pay for health care across the country, people like Dr. Arika Lafontaine, president of the Canadian Medical Association, Obviously, it simply isn’t enough.

“We definitely need more money,” he said, adding that health ministers needed to do more this week than tussle over the budget. How is it used?”

Monday and Tuesday’s meetings come four months after Canada’s prime minister convened in Victoria to demand more medical funding from the federal government.

In March, a month before the federal Liberal Party submitted its latest federal budget, Duclos pledged $2 billion to help states and territories clear the health care backlog created by the pandemic crisis. Did.

But Canada’s health care system, announced in April’s 2022 budget, had no new substantive funding, other than funding for the country’s dental programs and mental health services.

The 2022 federal budget reports that the federal government has invested more than $69 billion in health care since the start of the pandemic.

Duclos told CBC News that he plans to travel to Vancouver to build strong relationships with state and territory ministers and hopes the cooperation will be positive and results-focused. Told.

He denied accusations that Ottawa was willing to cut individual deals with cooperative states, ruling out other states.

The federal government has said there are five major topics it would like states and territories to address. Access to family health services, long-term and home care, mental health and addiction, health data and virtual care. .

The Canadian Medical Association works with other health care associations to promote health care in Canada, including through incentives to retain health care professionals, improve working conditions and enable doctors to work anywhere without licensing restrictions. We are calling for a national strategy on care.

Canadian Nurses Association CEO Tim Guest says health ministers and the federal government must act quickly and creatively.

Fifty percent of Nunavut’s nursing positions are vacant, and while Nova Scotia is trying to fill thousands of vacancies across all sectors, most other regions are also struggling to hire and retain health workers. increase.

“We need more funding for the health system, but without that I don’t think they would be embarrassed to make a difference right now,” he said of the health minister.

On Monday, Dix will host state and territory health ministers, and Duclos and Dix will co-chair on Tuesday.