Silas: Bold vision needed to ensure access to care at all ages
July 16, 2024 (HALIFAX, NS) – Nurses unions from across the country brought solutions to alleviate staffing pressures from primary care to long-term care at today’s policy breakfast with Canada’s premiers.
“Access to care at all ages relies on our nurses and health care workers. The nursing shortage impacts every aspect of our health care system, including primary care, where nurse practitioners have a key role in communities,” explained Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU). “Our leaders need to rise to the challenge with a bold vision for public health care that ensures everyone has access to primary care, where emergency services are accessible when you need them, and where our elders have choice over where they age while getting the care they need. This is the message we took to premiers today.”
Silas was joined by Dr. Jane Philpott, long-term care expert Dr. Samir Sinha and Nova Scotia nurse practitioner Santina Weatherby for a panel discussion on a vision to ensure Canadians have access to care at all ages. The panel presented solutions to bolster Canada’s public health care system, speaking to premiers from Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nunavut and Yukon, along with representatives from the Northwest Territories.
The CFNU is calling on all levels of government to work together on key evidence-based solutions to support the robust recovery of our health care systems by:
“Addressing staffing shortages is fundamental to fixing the ongoing crisis in health care,” Silas explained. “Years of unsafe working conditions and insufficient staffing are pushing nurses out of our public health care system. But nurses and health care workers have solutions, and we’re ready to roll up our sleeves and get the work done with the premiers.”
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Dr. Jane Philpott: “Canada’s patchwork approach to health care has left millions of Canadians struggling to access a family doctor or primary care provider. A system approach where access to primary care is organized for everyone based on postal code is not only feasible, it’s the good medicine this country needs.”
Dr. Samir Sinha: “As Canada’s population ages, our health care and support systems need to keep pace. Deliberately prioritizing resources to provide more home care and community support services would enable more older Canadians to live at home and in their communities, while easing pressure on our hospitals and creating more sustainable health care systems.”
Santina Weatherby, nurse practitioner: “Nurse practitioners represent a real opportunity to expand primary care services across the country. Working as a part of a collaborative care team allows us to build strong therapeutic relationships with our patients and ensure patients receive comprehensive primary care, something Canada needs much more of.”
The CFNU is Canada’s largest nurses’ organization, representing 250,000 Canada’s frontline nurses in every sector of health care – from home care, to LTC, community and acute care, including nursing students – and advocating on key health priorities and federal engagement in the future of public health care.
For more information, please contact Adella Khan, media@nursesunions.ca, 613-807-2942.