The only thing worse than grossly mismanaging the health-care system and driving up wait times to record levels during its 7 1/2 years in office is the Progressive Conservative party’s complaints that the current government isn’t doing enough to clean up the mess that was left behind.
The latest Tory beef is that there are still more than 9,000 Manitobans who have waited months to get their provincial health cards. Until they get their cards, they’re not covered under Manitoba’s universal health-care system. They have to pay out of pocket to see a doctor or to get a medical service that would otherwise be covered by government.
It’s a violation of the Canada Health Act, which prohibits the charging of fees for insured services. And it’s surely depriving some people of medical services who can’t afford to pay.
And whose fault is that? The Progressive Conservatives, who slashed health-care spending in an ideological mad rush to cut taxes nobody was asking for. Those same Tories now have the audacity to blame the current government for the backlog. It’s pretty rich.
Grain of salt
“The NDP ran their entire campaign on health care, and yet they are offering no solutions to this health card backlog other than playing politics and casting blame,” said interim PC Leader Wayne Ewasko, who served in the Tory cabinet until they were defeated in the Oct. 3 provincial election.
When the Tories were in office, the backlog to obtain a Manitoba Health card was well over 20,000 applications (it had grown to 24,453 in November, immediately after the change in government, to be precise). The problem was getting worse, not better, under former Premier Heather Stefanson, who also served as health minister in 2021.
That’s what happens when you gut the civil service and cut health-care spending to the degree the Tories did. Eventually, front-line services suffer, whether it’s accessing medically necessary treatment or getting a health card. This is the Progressive Conservative party’s legacy.
So when Ewasko, or any member of the Tory caucus, complains about the current government not doing enough to clean up the carnage their own party left behind, it has to be taken with a large grain of salt.
Despite Ewasko’s attacks, the backlog to obtain a Manitoba Health card is now shrinking. It has fallen to 9,180 applications as of Jan. 19. It’s still far too long. It’s entirely unacceptable for Manitobans to wait up to five months to be registered in the health-care system, especially for those in need of immediate medical care.
But it appears progress is being made. There is now a 28-person team in Manitoba Health processing the applications, up from 16 in September 2022. It’s staffed at 123 per cent of its usual complement.
The question Ewasko and the Tories have to answer is how and why they let it get this bad. This was a major failure. There is no universal health-care coverage unless you have a provincial health card.
Processing health-card applications is a relatively simple bureaucratic task. The province has a good idea of how many new Manitobans will be applying for cards from year to year. There is good data on inter-provincial migration and immigration patterns, including reasonably accurate projections of how many people will move to Manitoba in the near future. It’s largely predictable. The province should be able to plan staffing levels accordingly.
Beyond the pale
If the Tories couldn’t even get that right, it’s no wonder they mismanaged the health-care system as badly as they did. To now blame the current government for it is beyond the pale.
Taking five months or more to provide someone with a provincial health card means some people will be deprived of medical care, unless they can pay out of pocket for it. The province says it reimburses people who have to do so. But that takes time. Meanwhile, they have to come up with the cash. For some, that means drawing from their food, shelter and clothing budget, or borrowing money at high interest rates.
The whole point of a universal health-care system is to ensure Canadians, regardless of income, don’t have to pay out of pocket for medically necessary care. Under the Tories, that principle was grossly violated. That, as well as record wait times for basic health-care procedures, are the main reasons the party was defeated at the ballot box after less than eight years in office.
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019.
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