Manitoba Liberals introduce Bill 202 to improve accountability in health care delivery in Manitoba

Thursday, November 23, we Manitoba Liberals introduced new health care accountability legislation Bill 202 to add a new legal requirement for provincial health services to comply with Canada Health Act principles and to add a new principle of accountability.

I cited examples of the NDP's dysfunctional health care system in the legislature today when I introduced legislation to create a new legal requirement for health care services in Manitoba to comply with the five principles of the Canada Health Act.Bill 202, the Health Services Amendment and Health Services Insurance Amendment Act, legally enshrines the five principles of universality, public administration, accessibility, comprehensiveness, and portability into provincial law. The bill also adds an entirely new legal principle of ‘accountability’ that provincial health care services must comply with.

Below are excerpts from our press release about this bill:

“What we are trying to achieve with this bill is to begin creating a real legal right guaranteeing timely access to quality health care in Manitoba,” Dr. Gerrard said. “This is only a first step, one piece in creating that meaningful legal right. In seven years the Doer NDP has refused to even take this first step. We Liberals are tired of a government that refuses to govern, so we’re taking the initiative.”

Reinforcing his point in Question Period, Dr. Gerrard provided examples of how family practitioners, who should be at the centre of the health care system, have to order-up repeat medical tests at the taxpayer’s expense because they cannot get access to results of many in-hospital tests.

“It is ridiculous to have a situation where family practitioners are not kept up to date on the status of their patients,” Dr. Gerrard said. “Family doctors should not have to learn about the in-hospital death of a patient through an obituary in the newspaper. This government has wasted seven years doing nothing to ensure primary care and family practitioners have the information they need to coordinate care.”“

This is just another example why we need to get rid of this arrogant and incompetent Doer government,” Dr. Gerrard said. [And when it comes to health care, the only real alternative to the NDP is our Manitoba Liberal Party].

Below are excerpts from Hansard:
1) Bill 202 passes First Reading

Bill 202–The Health Services Amendment and Health Services Insurance Amendment Act

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the MLA for Inkster, that Bill 202, The Health Services Amendment and Health Services Insurance Amendment Act; Loi modifiant la Loi sur les services de santé et la Loi sur l'assurance-maladie, be now read a first time.

Motion presented.

Mr. Gerrard: Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for the use of the principle accountability in the delivery of health care services throughout Manitoba. This is a principle which the Romanow report advocated a number of years ago. It is important that we have accountability in our health care services that this bill would provide for the adoption of that principle.

Mr. Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? [Agreed]

2) Excert from Question Period:

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): For more than seven years this NDP government has run an utterly dysfunctional health care system. Health care in this province is so badly co-ordinated. Mr. Speaker, so badly co-ordinated is the health care in this province that family practitioners frequently have to repeat tests done in hospital because they can't get access to the in-hospital tests resulting in needless duplication.
Why is the Minister of Health continuing to operate such a dysfunctional system? Where is the accountability?

Hon. Theresa Oswald (Minister of Health): Well, Mr. Speaker, I certainly do find it curious strange that the member opposite, himself a doctor–and we won't get into the whole argument about how that may or may not, according to his definition, be a conflict of interest–may today be saying that the people in the system, the doctors, the nurses, the technologists, are running a system that is, in fact, in disrepair. We, on this side of the House, have the greatest of respect for the people on the front lines who are working with patients: the nurses, the doctors, the technologists. We have the greatest of respect for those running hospitals. I really find it pretty appalling that the member opposite would have such negative and horrible things to say about these professionals. Shame on him.

My Comments:

1) You will notice from Theresa Oswald's reply that she totally misunderstands the situation. The problem is that under the NDP government (after 7 years of NDP government), the system is not operating properly to ensure family practitioners are kept informed about what happens with their patients. The NDP are running a "bureaucracy-centred" system instead of a "patient and family-practitioner centred system". The system is being run in the fashion of forty years ago. It badly needs to be changed so that family practitioners will have continuous, quick and rapid access to information on the patients they are responsible for - provided that the patient, the Manitoba citizen, has indeed asked the physician to be their family doctor.

2) You will notice that I only had one question instead of the normal question and two supplementaries (the exception is Monday and Tuesday when Kevin and I share the question and two supplementaries). The reason for this is the the Manitoba Tories were being nasty and hogging time in question period. It is curious that they limited my ability to ask questions on health care - a subject on which they are weak. We adopted tactics on Friday to remind them that their behaviour on Thursday was inappropriate. Hopefully, the Tories will be better behaved this coming week.