Health task force pushes back against privatization criticism

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This article was published 30/05/2023 (331 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Concern about the use of private contracts to clear Manitoba’s pandemic surgical backlog has created harmful rhetoric around the provincial task force’s work, one of its leaders says.

Ed Buchel, provincial surgery specialty lead for Shared Health, pushed back Wednesday on what he described as rhetoric that falsely compares Manitoba’s agreements with private clinics to privatization of the health-care system.

“It is publicly funded, with public oversight, and it is privately delivered. We just need to be really clear, because the emotions run crazy high when we talk about privatizing our system. We are all heavily invested in our system. We are the system,” Buchel said at a news conference at Victoria Hospital. It was also attended by David Matear, executive director of the province’s Diagnostic and Surgical Recovery Task Force, and Dr. Peter MacDonald, chairman of the task force’s steering committee.

“So, the rhetoric around that is harmful,” Buchel said.

The task force says it has cleared 42 per cent of the overall backlog of surgeries and diagnostic tests that piled up during COVID-19 shutdowns and redeployments.

Since the task force began its work in December 2021, more than 72,300 procedures have been completed, with about 500 of them done out of province.

Most of the surgeries and tests were performed in hospitals and public health centres, while 28,200 were performed via temporary arrangements with service providers.

The task force stated those 28,200 procedures were conducted at private and public clinics, depending on which organizations were granted approval through the provincial request for supply arrangement process. The task force plans to continue to use a combination of private contracts and existing public resources to eliminate backlogs and reduce long wait times, officials said Wednesday.

The task force has been criticized for prioritizing private contracts over investments in the public system, particularly after two Winnipeg sleep specialist physicians resigned from their clinical advisory roles on the task force in April to protest the focus on private-sector involvement instead of additional public funding.

Task force officials countered those criticisms as they delivered a progress update on the state of Manitoba’s backlog, saying patients don’t pay out of pocket for tests or procedures that are delivered by private partners.

Although wait lists are still too long — with official wait list data expected this summer — the task force says it has cleared COVID-related backlogs completely for MRIs, adult allergy tests, pediatric sleep studies, cardiac electrophysiology tests, myocardial perfusion, transplants, ortho-spine procedures.

The COVID-related backlogs have been reduced by at least 50 per cent in orthopedic hip and knee surgeries; ear, nose and throat procedures, pediatric surgeries, neurosurgeries and bone-density tests, the task force says.

No data was provided to break down those percentages.

Shared Health and the task force are working to set target wait times for procedures in the provincial health care system, and a data management system to track wait times is expected to be fully rolled out by early September.

“There are unacceptable wait times, and were even pre-COVID in some areas, and we’re continuing to work on those… and bring them down to acceptable levels,” MacDonald said.

Opposition politicians questioned the task force’s progress, saying wait times for many procedures are still getting worse even if the backlog is getting back down to 2020 levels.

The NDP and the Liberals called for more transparency on the task force’s work.

Liberal leader Dougald Lamont said he would’ve expected the task force would be allowed to do its work independently, but that didn’t happen because the task force is part of the provincial government.

“On what basis are these decisions being made? We don’t know, and we should.”

“On what basis are these decisions being made? We don’t know, and we should.”–Liberal leader Dougald Lamont

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NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara said they are concerned the government isn’t listening to physicians and experts to deal with the backlog. The criticism of private contracts, Asagwara said, is not directed at health-care professionals, but at the government.

Manitoba Health Coalition director Thomas Linner said it’s “an issue of transparency,” and the public needs more details about the temporary task force agreements through which the 28,200 procedures were performed.

“It is not rhetoric. It is a serious question and it’s one that the task force should expect to face.”

— With files from Danielle Da Silva and Carol Sanders

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com

Katie May
Reporter

Katie May is a general-assignment reporter for the Free Press.

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