N.L.'s share of federal funding not enough to deal with surgery backlog, says medical association

Before an injection of new federal funds for health care gets put to use in Newfoundland and Labrador, the provincial medical association wants workers on the front lines to have their say on how to spend it.

Dr. Susan MacDonald, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association, told CBC News on Tuesday she was pleased to hear the federal government announce $2 billion in funding on Friday to help clear surgical backlogs brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. But, she says, the amount coming to the province won't be enough.

"We'll get probably around $27 million," said MacDonald. "In health care that kind of money, while it is substantial, it doesn't necessarily fix long-standing issues."

MacDonald said the health-care system was struggling in every area before the pandemic, and COVID-19 made things a lot worse.

Earlier in March the NLMA called on the provincial government to make plans for eliminating the backlog of surgeries that grew because of COVID-19 shutdowns and the cyberattack on the province's health-care system in October. At the time, the association said there were 6,000 backlogged appointments in St. John's alone. 

On Tuesday MacDonald said that number is likely higher because it didn't include gynecological procedures.

An injection of $27 million won't fix the issues, said MacDonald, but could start addressing the larger problems, such as reducing inefficiency. There are more than 600 vacant nursing positions in the province and 20 vacant physician jobs with surgical elements, she said, which are problems that won't get fixed overnight. 

"When you start looking at it with that lens, things become a bit more complicated. It's not as simple as saying, 'Let's build an extra operating room,'" said MacDonald.

"If you have no place to put the patients after their surgery, or you don't have the surgical nurses to be at the surgery, you don't have the post-op nurses in the post-operative care, you can't get an anesthetist, then having an empty room is not going to fix the problem." 

MacDonald wants to see a committee formed to come up with ideas on how to spend the money.

Health Minister John Haggie said Tuesday the Department of Health's plan is to consult the four regional health authorities but the first thing the province has to do is deal with a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations before stressing the health-care system further. 

"The staff on the floors at the moment are really challenged to deal with the work they have now," he said.

Hundreds of thousands of elective surgeries have been cancelled across Canada since the pandemic began, leading to Friday's influx in federal funding. 

MacDonald said the surgeries are "elective" only in the sense that patients and medical staff can pick the day in which they take place.