Health Care Needs Long-term Solution

PREMIER'S OFFICE- Health Care Needs Long-term Solution

Any agreement with the federal government on health care must reflect the consensus reached by premiers last month to accommodate regional differences, Premier John Hamm said today.

In a letter written Tuesday, Sept. 5, to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, the premier expressed concern that all indications to date from the federal government point to health care funding primarily on a per-capita basis. Such funding accounts only for population and not for the specific needs of individual provinces and territories.

The position adopted unanimously at premiers' conferences over the past several years, including last month in Winnipeg, calls for sustainable health care funding. This can be achieved, in part, through a strengthened equalization program, starting with the immediate removal of the federal government's ceiling on equalization payments.

"If Canadians are to enjoy a national, long-term public health care system, regardless of where they live, then Ottawa must agree to work with the provinces and territories on funding agreements that respect regional differences," said Premier Hamm, a family physician for 30 years. "An agreement solely based on per-capita funding, without a significant commitment to strengthen equalization, will lead to a medicare system based on where someone lives, not on the health care someone needs."

In his letter, the premier also highlighted the regional disparities that exist in certain regions of Canada, notably higher rates of elderly and disabled persons, illnesses, chronic conditions and premature deaths.

"Nova Scotia, by comparison with other, more prosperous provinces, already suffers from a considerable degree of disparities, particularly in the health services we are able to provide to our citizens," the premier noted in his letter. "Strictly per capita funding arrangements will not begin to address the specific circumstances and needs of Nova Scotia. More funding distributed per capita to programs which we already cannot afford to deliver at the same level as other provinces will not diminish these disparities...indeed, it further accentuates them."

In addition to seeking sustainable long-term funding for health care and social programs, Premier Hamm has recently raised the importance of achieving greater co-operation among the provinces and territories on health human resource issues. At the premiers' conference in Winnipeg, the premier led the discussion on the need for a more co-ordinated approach to recruiting, retraining and retaining health care professionals.

"Ottawa reinvesting in health care is only part of the answer to fixing health care," added the premier today. "Provincial and territorial governments, on behalf of Canadians, must continue to show responsible management of health care budgets that will forever face increasing, and often conflicting, pressures to spend."