For Immediate Release
12 April, 2023
Jim Dinn, NDP Leader and MHA St. John’s Centre is concerned that government’s newly announced website is nothing more than a smoke screen in an attempt to obscure the health care crisis.
“Government launched the health action website in response to being rightly criticized for its scatter shot approach to addressing the health care crisis,” said Dinn. “They say it’s about educating people when really it’s more self-promotion and self-praise. You only have to look at how far down you have to scroll on the website to get to the link to where people can sign up on the wait list for a doctor. Patient Connect was not a priority when developing this website.”
The government’s new website was launched following a report by AllNewfoundlandLabrador outlining how $100 million was spent on private nursing recruitment agencies. This amount was only for central and western health. Dinn is concerned that government doesn’t see the fallacy in using private nursing agencies to fix the problem while they are undermining the very system they are failing to shore up.
“$100 million invested into the system would have made a great difference to retention of healthcare nurses fleeing the public system. How much of this $100 million is going to pay nurses and how much is going to the agency?” questioned Dinn.
“That’s money that’s gone out of the province to private health care so they can cannibalize nurses from the public healthcare system to work for these agencies. Government is creating tension and stress in the workplace and could be using this money to make work life balance better for healthcare professionals.”
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca