Editor’s note: The following commentary is based on commitments contained in party platforms, and not remarks from media interviews.
We appreciate that the major political parties are targeting health care as an important issue in this election campaign. If their election platforms are anything to go by, they recognize, with the exception of the Conservatives, that the health care system is in trouble, and the solutions they are proposing in their platforms show they are taking the situation seriously.
The main problem is the lack of health care professionals, and the political parties recognize this, as their solutions propose. However, none of the political parties mention the support staff who are part of our health care system and face challenges.
The Liberals, the Greens and the NDP propose investing in retention bonuses to retain these professionals. Only the Greens propose offering salaries comparable to those in the other Maritime provinces. The Conservatives’ platform merely calls for the creation of a task force to improve nurses’ working conditions, which is a clear indication of their lack of seriousness.
To recruit more staff, the Liberals would improve the remuneration system for those who work after normal hours. The Greens propose financial assistance for the installation of doctors and nurse practitioners. The Greens also want to offer free tuition to medical and nursing students, while the NDP would extend this financial assistance to all health professions. For their part, the Liberals and the NDP would simplify the recognition of foreign diplomas, which is not included in the Green or Conservative platforms.
We are all aware of the lack of access to health care, and the major parties are proposing to set up community clinics where different health professionals are grouped together, so that each person is directed to the professional or professionals they need. The Greens, Liberals and NDP are also proposing to lighten their administrative workload so they can devote more time to patient care, which we certainly support.
The Conservative platform, on the other hand, is proposing to broaden the scope of practice of a number of health care professionals. By overstepping their areas of competence, these professionals can accidentally make decisions that have serious negative impacts on the population they serve. This element is also present in the Liberal platform, which is worrying.
The Greens and the NDP are the only two parties to address the growing privatization of our health care by the Conservatives. We know that, in partnership with the private company Medavie, they have opened several health clinics, negotiated contracts with private companies to offer cataract surgeries, and developed virtual care by giving a monopoly of these services to eVisitNB. The Liberals’ silence about this in their party platform doesn’t look good for the future.
The Conservatives have completely forgotten seniors in their platform. The Liberals and Greens support the Home Without Walls program as a way to help seniors stay in their homes as long as possible, but the NDP doesn’t mention it. The Liberals want to increase the number of employees and wages of workers in nursing homes as well as those providing home care. The Greens want residents to receive at least 4.1 hours of care per day.
These recommendations are excellent, but the difficulty of finding the necessary staff remains a serious problem, despite wage increases.
Now that the elections are on a fixed date, all the political parties should unveil their electoral platforms as soon as the campaign kicks off. Every citizen has the right to know the vision and proposals of the political parties, so that they can reflect, discuss and make informed decisions about who to vote for. That’s what democracy is about. The thin two-page document that the Conservatives want to pass off as an election platform, published during the last week of the campaign, is an insult to the citizens of New Brunswick. It encourages cynicism among voters and does nothing to help the democratic process.
Jean-Claude Basque is with the New Brunswick Health Coalition.