Recent actions seem to show P.E.I. sliding towards a two-tiered health-care system, says members of the province’s New Democratic Party.
NDP Leader Joe Byrne and party president Leah-Jane Hayward said they met with Health Minister Robert Mitchell recently to raise concerns on two issues, the granting of a contract for home-care services to a private company and government support of a “Skip the Waiting Room” app.
The two presented Mitchell with comments from Islanders in connection with a petition that was provided to the legislature, which protested the government’s granting of a home care services contract to Island EMS (which is owned by private company Medavie).
After a one-hour meeting, Byrne said he was impressed with Mitchell’s sincerity in explaining the government’s intention and applauded the boost to home care.
However, he said a deal with a private corporation is a “sign of the temptation to turn profit-seeking agents to carry out functions which should be provided under direct public management.”
“Paramedic services are a valuable essential, and they should be fully a part of the public health structure,” said Byrne.
Hayward also took aim at the province’s support to a private company for its “Skip the Waiting Room” app, which she described as a scheme that gives advantage to people who pay a fee for preferred access to physician care.
“A five-dollar charge may seem minor,” said Hayward. “But it’s a thin-edge-of-the-wedge. A slide toward a two-tier system – different benefits for different citizens – in what is, by the law of the Canada Health Act, meant to be a universal equal-access right.”
Byrne said the NDP sticks to the principle that public money should be used to “fund essential services that are delivered in a truly public management way.”
