For Immediate Release
6 February, 2023
Dinn Offers Focus Areas in Letter to Premier Ahead of First Ministers' Meeting
Ahead of the First Ministers of Canada meeting taking place tomorrow to discuss healthcare in Canada, NDP Leader and MHA for St. John’s Centre, Jim Dinn, wrote the Premier outlining focus areas Dinn believes should be the priority for discussions.
In his letter Dinn wrote:
“Focus on LTC: Press for funding to put in place the long term care standards that were released last week. We have to work help people stay at home longer, spend less time in hospital, and age with dignity.
“We know that in our province long term care beds sit empty due to a lack of staff. This is causing a bottleneck in our hospitals which means hospital beds are not available when needed. This is adding to our surgical backlog. We need solutions that will lessen pressure on beds in hospitals and help with surgery delays.”
“Focus on retention of healthcare professionals: Staff shortages are at the crux of the issues we are facing in our public healthcare system. After years of dealing with burnout and stress our healthcare systems are bleeding staff,” Dinn continued.
“We must regain the confidence of healthcare professionals. They must believe that government is honest and sincere when workers are told that the public healthcare system will be different than the disrespect and grueling environments that continues to push them to consider jobs in the private sector, or another industry entirely.”
“Focus on strengthening public healthcare: Your government must keep our healthcare and long term care system publicly funded and publicly delivered. We cannot add profit into the equation. Our goal as a province should not be to prop up private healthcare services as a stop gap measure.”
“If it can be done in a for profit model paid by the public service, there should be no reason why the public healthcare system cannot offer the same and take the profit margin out of the equation.”
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The full letter has been included as an attachment to this release.
For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca