NL ‘on par with Puerto Rico and Venezuela’ financially, health minister says – The Telegram

Haggie said the province must make huge changes to how health care is delivered, but can’t afford to spend money.

“We’re in a fiscal hole that’s unparalleled in Canadian history in any jurisdiction,” he said. We’re on a par with Puerto Rico and Venezuela where they turn the lights off for eight hours a day to try to make the publications balance. That’s how bad things are financially.”

In his speech to the Primary Healthcare Forum conference, Haggie ran through a litany of concrete measures of how unhealthy Newfoundland and Labrador is.

“This province actually spends far more per capita on health care than the other jurisdictions in this country. We, in actual fact, spend 29 per cent more per capita; that’s a full $1,127 per resident more than any other comparable jurisdiction,” he said. “We have some of the worst rates of population health outcomes and statistics in the country, the highest rates of chronic diseases. We’ve got the highest rates of obesity, inactivity and smoking.”

As if that weren’t bad enough, Haggie said, the province spends less than any other jurisdiction in Canada on health promotion and disease prevention.

“We eat less fruit and vegetables than residents in most jurisdictions, and we get less exercise,” he said.

We also order more tests, and consume more antibiotics per capita than any other province.

Haggie said that changes must be made, and from there, he shifted to talking about how the health-care system must transform, but on that front he was far less concrete in his language.

“We need to look at how we can integrate independent family physicians on one end, with services offered by regional health authorities on the other, with the aim of actually getting the co-ordinated system and maximizing the scope of practice for all those primary care providers,” he said.

This province actually spends far more per capita on health care than the other jurisdictions in this country.
Health Minister John Haggie

To that end, he said that the government has actually adopted a Brand-new primary health care framework.

“Our government has actually committed to support the development of community-based teams, interdisciplinary teams with a Brand-new service delivery model behind it,” he said.

 “The goal is where individuals and families in their communities are supported and empowered — they’re empowered to achieve the very best optimal health they can within a system that ultimately becomes sustainable.”

Speaking to media after his speech, Haggie said that conferences like the primary health-care forum will help to bring people together to make the slow, incremental changes needed to transform the health-care system.

“We have a goal in government, a vision of a sustainable health care system based around the needs of individuals, their families, and their communities,” he said. “And how do you change what we have now, into what we would certainly like to see, in a situation where you really have very little fiscal leeway? Those are the challenges at the moment, and I think groups like this will help inform that decision and that process. It’s going to be a little bit at a time.”

As for what concrete steps the government will take to make changes? Haggie said the plan is to cut stuff to free up money.

“What we’re going to have to do, and what we’ve tried to do within health, is try to identify those areas where the return on expenditure has actually been minimal or zero, and stop doing that.”