If you ask Canadians what makes them the proudest of their country, the answer you’ll hear most often is our public health care system. However, this institution that we rely on is in crisis.
Decades of cuts to federal health care transfers by Liberal and Conservative governments, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have undermined our health care system’s ability to provide healthcare services to Canadians. Hospitals are short staffed, wait times for procedures can be in the years, and one in five Canadians does not have a family doctor.
In some provinces, conservative premiers are slowly privatizing health care services, turning over millions of dollars in health care funding to their wealthy friends and forcing patients to bring their credit cards instead of their health cards when seeking care.
The NDP has a plan:
- Fiercely opposing attempts to privatize health services which result in huge profits for private companies and worse services for patients
- Increased federal financial support through the Canada Health Transfer
- Measures that address staffing shortages such as accelerating foreign credential recognition and incentives to attract more physicians into family care
- Increasing medical and nursing school seats.
- Investments in preventative care
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Expanding non-profit long-term care beds
We need political will, cooperation, and accountability from all actors. And we need national leadership to protect our Universal Public Health Care system.