Atlantic premiers discuss health-care crisis in latest meeting

FILE - Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey and Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King, left to right, field questions at the closing news conference at a meeting of the Council of Atlantic Premiers in Halifax on Monday, March 21, 2022. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan)

Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King is set to succeed Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston as the Chair of the Council of Atlantic Premiers in 2023. The decision was announced at the end of a virtual meeting focused on health-care priorities and sustainable regional growth.

The Atlantic provinces have all been grappling with a health-care crisis exacerbated by doctor shortages and backlogs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of Nova Scotians without a family doctor hit a record high of 120,409 people in November, up from 82,678 people in January.

Residents of Prince Edward Island are facing similar shortages of family doctors, with 26,267 people on a provincial patient registry to obtain a primary-care physician.

The situation is even worse in Newfoundland, where a Narrative Research poll found back in June that 24 per cent of people in the province -- roughly 125,000 – don’t have a family doctor.

New Brunswick’s health-care system has also been mired with controversy, with recent reports of an 88-year-old patient being placed in a supply room and a victim of sexual assault being turned away from an emergency department.

The premiers say health-care systems are struggling to “provide timely services, address workforce shortages and support health-care professionals in their workplaces.” As a solution, premiers are hoping to shift to an Atlantic system, which would see physicians move and practice throughout the region.

According to a news release Monday, the premiers talked about the need for better cooperation between provinces and the federal government on topics like long-term sustainable health-care funding.

The premiers have renewed their calls for an increase in the Canada Health Transfer, a move that would see the federal share of provincial or territorial health-care costs rise to 35 per cent.

In addition to health-care talks, the Atlantic premiers were vocal in support of the federal government’s plan to increase immigration rates across the country, while asking for increased flexibility in immigration programming and called on the feds to improve processing times for applicants.

On the topic of green energy, the premiers weighed options for the region, including hydro, wind, small modular reactors and hydrogen. The premiers also voiced concerns about the effects of federal carbon pricing on Atlantic Canadian consumers, particularly due to the region’s reliance on home heating oil.