Health ministers promise united front on wait-time funds

SHAWNA RICHER

Globe and Mail Update

MONCTON — Provincial and territorial health ministers have promised to present a united front Saturday when asking federal Health Minister Tony Clement for more money to meet waiting-time guarantees for patients.

“I believe we will make significant progress with the federal minister,” said Michael Murphy, New Brunswick Health Minister and chair of the conference. “We want to make sure [Mr. Clement] is aware we want active participation in a number of initiatives by the federal government, and that pilot projects are one thing but long-term funding for a number of the initiatives being considered by [Ottawa] are another.”

The ministers say that they need guaranteed funding from Ottawa to meet guaranteed waiting times and that while a 2004 accord with the federal government provides money for studies, there is none to meet the waiting-time targets.

“If you want to [reduce waiting times] there is a price tag,” Mr. Murphy said. “The costs are escalating and we have to rein those costs in. We have to make sure those people who need care are cared for and that it is provided under the Canada Health Act.”

The provincial health ministers were scheduled to have dinner with Mr. Clement last night and have formal meetings today. Alberta, Quebec and the Yukon were not represented here.

Nova Scotia Health Minister Chris d'Entremont said that providing the required equipment and staff to ease those waits could cost his province as much as $50-million each year.

“On wait times we need to find a common ground with all the provinces and we have a lot of work to do to reach that before we talk with the federal government [today],” Mr. d'Entremont said.

In November, a report released by the Canadian Wait Time Alliance suggested it was impossible to know whether medical waiting times in Canada are being reduced.

Also in Moncton yesterday, the Best Medicines Coalition, a grassroots group of consumer and advocate organizations funded by pharmaceutical companies, spoke out against the reluctance and refusal of insurance firms to pay for newer, more expensive drugs for patients in need.

Coalition member Linda Wilhelm, an arthritis patient from Sussex, N.B., who has lived with debilitating pain, came to Moncton in hopes of communicating to the health ministers that the provinces should work to regulate the insurance companies to provide necessary medications, not just the cheapest ones.

“The government has known this has been a problem for a long time,” Ms. Wilhelm said. “The government did two years of work on the national pharmaceutical strategy and right now it's sitting in Ottawa somewhere. The federal government is so focused on wait times that they're not looking at the big picture. They're not looking at the cause of those wait times.”

But Mr. Murphy said a national pharmaceutical strategy and pandemic planning were also discussed.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061208.wprovince1208/BNStory/National/home