Health ministers duck workforce question

Date: Sept. 17, 1999
Time: 1:59 pm

"We are pleased that the ministers are at least talking about the issue, but we would have liked to have seen a commitment to a concrete strategy to solve the problem," said Maureen Farrington, director of corporate affairs at the Canadian Nurses Association

The CNA is joined in their fight for government action on health care resources by both the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and the CMA. Both groups have pressed the ministers to take action in the face of a worsening situation.

"Health care reform and funding cutbacks have taken their toll on the health care workforce," Dr. Hugh Scully, the CMA president, said during the association's annual meeting 3 weeks ago. "The decline in growth of physician supply combined with an aging population means that Canada is heading toward a doctor shortage. The upshot is that patients' access to doctors will become even more difficult than it is already."

This sentiment is echoed by CFPC President Peter Newbery, whose group sounded the alarm earlier this week that a shortage of family physicians has led to a dramatic increase in the number of "closed practices" -- doctors who are not accepting new patients.

"This is one of the most serious developments arising from the shortfall of family physicians," said Newbery. "These shortages are putting enormous pressure on our existing workforce, and many practices are now at the limit of their capacity to care for new patients."

Speaking to the media yesterday, federal Health Minister Allan Rock maintained that he and his provincial and territorial counterparts who met this week in Charlottetown were not going to be pressured into finding a solution to the shortage of health care professionals. Rock did say that he was expecting a report on the human resource issue in health care to be released early next year.

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