Province urges federal government to continue vital health-care funding

Manitoba wants the federal government to renew an annual $150-million health-care agreement that, for the last three years, has helped the province go “further, faster” to staff up the front lines.

“The loss of these agreements would mean that we’re losing predictable targeted federal contributions that have helped us stabilize staffing and strengthen health care — not just health care in our hospitals, but community-based care as well,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Friday.

The program, dubbed “Working Together to Improve Health Care for Canadians,” was announced in February 2023; the federal government has earmarked close to $150 million a year in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26. Tuesday’s federal budget made no mention of renewing those funding agreements.

“I think there was an opportunity missed today to signal that the bilateral funding agreements for your health care are going to continue,” Premier Wab Kinew noted in his response to the budget on Tuesday. One of the deals Manitoba signed is set to expire at the end of March.

“We need to get these deals extended,” Kinew said.

Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets agrees.

“The Working Together federal funding has helped Manitoba recruit a record number of doctors, so we know how critical this funding is,” she said in an email.

“The funding plan is also supposed to help reduce ER wait times as well as connect digital health records so doctors can share information reliably and without fax machines,” Desilets said.

Desilets said there is a lot at stake for patient care, so losing this funding would be a step backwards for doctors and patients.

Asagwara said the money helped the NDP government address years of health-care cuts when it took office: “in particular, what it really allows for us to do is to go further, faster.”

The minister said their top priority of staffing up the front lines and stabilizing the system was strengthened by the agreement.

“We’re going to continue to prioritize protecting the front lines and improving care at the bedside,” the minister said.

The head of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals said funding uncertainty means staffing uncertainty.

“That is a huge problem when Manitoba is already deep in a staffing crisis that is putting patients and health-care professionals at risk,” president Jason Linklater said in an email Friday.

“We’re heading into respiratory season and we are dangerously short of respiratory therapists. Manitoba hasn’t made any real progress on filling paramedic vacancies. Many other specialized allied health professions, including diagnostic technologists, are still desperately short-staffed, causing Manitobans to wait longer for testing and other necessary services.”

The federal budget made no mention of “adequate and predictable” funding for health staffing that is needed now, he said.

Manitoba is not alone in wanting the bilateral health funding agreements to continue, Asagwara said.

“At our most recent federal, provincial, territorial, health ministers meeting, this was a hot topic of conversation. We were all very clear with federal minister (Marjorie) Michel that our hope would be to continue to work collaboratively with Canada to ensure that these agreements would be extended.

“We were hoping for some assurances on that front. We didn’t receive any,” Asagwara said.

The Canadian Health Coalition, which is made up national organizations for health-care workers, nurses, seniors, churches, anti-poverty groups, women and trade unions, said the federal government intends to let the “Working Together” funding agreements with provinces and territories expire.

It said in a news release that the federal budget dedicates $5 billion over three years, starting in 2026-27, to a health infrastructure fund to be used by provinces and territories to improve hospitals, emergency rooms, urgent care centres and medical schools.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca