NDP prescribes $500M for health-care system

The NDP is betting their $500-million add new medical clinics will help address the nursing and doctor shortage endured by some Canadians.

Thestar.com
Sept. 14, 2015
By Joanna Smith and Bruce Campion-Smith

The New Democrats are betting their $500-million pledge to hire more health-care professionals and add new medical clinics is just the prescription to address the nursing and doctor shortage endured by some Canadians.

The NDP is also promising to devote $40 million over the next four years to a national strategy on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease that would support screening and early diagnosis, improve resources for new patients and families to help them navigate the health-care system, increase funding for research and develop guidelines for the dignified care of patients with dementia.

During a visit to a Vancouver health clinic Monday, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said Canadians are going without a family doctor, suffering “hallway medicine” and that aging seniors are stuck in hospitals because of a lack of home care.

He unveiled an NDP promise to spend $300 million to help build or expand 200 clinics and $200 million in recruitments grants for doctors, nurse practitioners and other health providers, to be directed by the provinces. The grants would range between $15,000 and $50,000 per recruit.

Mulcair said the two initiatives would result in the hiring of 7,000 additional health-care workers and improve access to medical care for five million Canadians. But his proposal would take time - it takes upwards of eight years of training to become a doctor and at least four years for a nurse.

“Our plan will put patients and their families first by making health services more convenience, accessible and closer to home,” he said.

Mulcair said the NDP’s health-care policy will focus on four areas: better care for seniors; faster access to health-care professionals; national strategy on mental health; and cutting the cost of medication.

On Sunday, the NDP unveiled an initiative on home care and long-term care to give seniors better access to “timely” care in their own homes.

Speaking Monday, Mulcair defended the NDP’s approach to phase in campaign pledges, like its health-care vow.

Mulcair has been coming under heavy criticism from Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau for committing to balance his first federal budget despite expensive promises like a $15-a-day national daycare plan.

Trudeau criticized the NDP for back-end loading the money needed to fill many of those pledges.

“What he’s saying is his priority is getting out of deficit right now and giving Canadians the help they need later, in a few years. I don’t know who he’s been talking to, but the people I’ve been talking to need help now,” Trudeau said Monday during a campaign event in Toronto.

Mulcair, who plans to release the financial details of his promises this week, said the phasing in of those plans over time is the responsible thing to do.

“We’ve said that we don’t need the type of short-term thinking being proposed by the Liberals, where they are going to dump a massive debt on the backs of future generations,” Mulcair said Monday of the Liberal plan to run deficits until 2019.

Mulcair said his health announcement was a prime example of how spending needs to be ramped up over time.

“When we talk about getting more professionals hired, that begins in the first year, but for obvious reason you require a bit of planning, the more solid aspect, the infrastructure aspect, the clinics, that starts in the second year. That’s just common sense in terms of public administration,” Mulcair said in Vancouver.