From thetelegram.com
Doctors are holding a fall conference intended to gauge need for a independent review of the province’s health care system.
Major players such as government, municipal leaders, educators and researchers, the various health care unions, representatives of the four regional health authorities and others are being asked to the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association (NLMA) event.
In March, the association consulted its members and pitched a bunch of recommendations to provincial Finance Minister Cathy Bennett and Health Minister Dr. John Haggie.
The association told The Telegram this week it isn’t aware that any of those recommendations made it into the spring budget.
With an expected mini-budget in the fall, doctors want to ensure any future cuts will be “evidence-based” and not piecemeal.
Hence, the conference.
“The NLMA does not welcome this situation, but we need to play a role in shaping and influencing the decisions that government will be making,” current president Dr. Christopher Cox said in a president’s letter to his colleagues about looming big health care decisions.
“We cannot simply stand by and react to government’s ideas and proposals. We cannot risk the possibility that government’s decisions will be short-term or ad hoc in nature. Even with best intentions, the electoral cycle can often weigh heavily on healthcare sector decision-making.”
The letter points out distribution of health services in the province are based on a population and disease profile that’s 30 to 50 years out of date.
Dr. Lynn Dwyer, the NLMA president-elect who takes the lead next June, spoke to The Telegram about the conference.
“Government has made it clear,” Dwyer said of the demand for cuts.
An aging population, vast geography, the inventory of infrastructure and high rates of chronic disease have put the province in a position of spending well beyond the national average for health care — $3 billion a year, roughly 600 million more than the national average. It has the highest per capita spending among the 10 provinces.
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