It wasn’t the biggest change to health care made by the former Progressive Conservative government, but it may have been among the worst.
The Mature Women’s Centre at Victoria General Hospital specialized in gynecological conditions, including menopause transition. Over the 25 or so years it was open, the centre saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for the health-care system by helping women avoid costly and invasive surgical procedures.
But in its rush to reform health care, the Tories closed it in 2017 as part of an arbitrary and aimless system-wide cost-cutting exercise. The closure was often cited as evidence of just how bad the Tories were at managing health care.
This week, however, the mature women’s clinic found new life in the provincial budget, which provided some preliminary funding to rebuild it at the Vic, along with the reinstatement of a full emergency department.
If there was any downside to the budget announcement it was that, according to Premier Wab Kinew and Finance Minister Adrien Sala, it will take years to complete both projects.
The projects are not alone. In fact, there is a strong sense of delayed gratification built into many of the health-care related budgetary measures announced this week.
The NDP has promised to establish a supervised drug-consumption site, but won’t do it this year while a community-wide consultation takes place. The government has promised yet again to hire an additional 1,000 health-care workers — including hundreds more physicians and nurses — but has yet to say exactly how its going to get that done in this fiscal year.
Coupled with the stubborn wait-list logjam for priority surgical procedures and ER treatment, it would be easy to grow concerned the province may not have all the solutions to the old problems that have afflicted health care.
Easing those concerns will ultimately require the Kinew government to carefully manage expectations over the next year.
In his pre-budget news conference, Kinew acknowledged that Manitobans are going to want to see the NDP deliver on the long list of pledges issued during last summer’s election campaign and in the period since. But his overarching pledge was that there would be change — noticeable change — sooner, rather than later.
“The challenge that we face in health care isn’t going to be solved overnight, but based on the investments in this document, you are going to start seeing improvements in health care this year,” he told reporters.
At first blush, seeing “some” improvements “sometime” this year doesn’t seem to be an iron-clad promise. On the other hand, governments have been hamstrung by less-definitive pledges.
Back in the 1999 election, the Gary Doer-led NDP pledged to “end hallway medicine.” Overcrowding at ERs, triggered by a lack of bed space in hospitals, had become the hot-button issue in that campaign.
Once elected, however, the NDP found itself shackled to high expectations about exactly what it meant when it promised to “end” hallway medicine.
History will show the Doer government did a pretty good job of reducing overcrowding in ERs but could not completely eliminate the presence of some patients in hallways.
The reality — not reflected in the campaign pledge — was that in most ERs during the busiest times, there are patients who need to be kept for observation but don’t require admission. The continued presence of some patients in hallways left the NDP open to the allegation it did not keep its promise to voters.
So, was “ending” hallway medicine a promise that no patients who needed to be admitted were kept in hallways, or that there would be no patients on gurneys in an ER hallway for any reason? Nuances aside, it is generally accepted the Doer government failed to end hallway medicine.
Is the Kinew government facing the same risk?
Of all the promises, the commitment to add 1,000 health-care workers seems most likely to backfire on the NDP.
Some progress in adding staff is inevitable, thanks to increased training of physicians, nurses and other health-care staff. Recruitment efforts outside Manitoba should also help add to the total.
However, the NDP is trying to keep this pledge at a time when every province is suffering from a critical shortage of health-care professionals. In such a labour market, it’s unclear how smaller provinces, including Manitoba, can compete with larger provinces that — quite frankly — have been intensively recruiting much longer, offering much bigger bonuses and incentives.
There are also some concerns about how this pledge will be measured. Health-care staffing is a dynamic, constantly fluctuating number. If the government hires 1,000 new staff but loses 500 to normal attrition, has it kept its promise?
In the final analysis, the number of actual staff added to the system — either net or gross — will be far less important than what adding staff to the system is supposed to accomplish: shorter wait times for desperately needed diagnostic and surgical procedures.
The painful reality awaiting the NDP government is that if it can’t deliver shorter wait times, it will be roasted on a bonfire of its own broken promises.
dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com
Dan Lett
Columnist
Born and raised in and around Toronto, Dan Lett came to Winnipeg in 1986, less than a year out of journalism school with a lifelong dream to be a newspaper reporter.