April 11, 2023 at 3:19 pm
Canada’s public safety minister visited Bluewater Health in Sarnia Tuesday morning to promote health care investments in the 2023 budget.
About $198 billion of the budget will be spent on health care over the next 10 years, according to Marco Mendicino.
He said this would have real, concrete benefits for Bluewater Health in a number of ways, including recruiting and retaining new healthcare workers to the front line.
“The two years coming out of the pandemic have been very difficult, with high rates of attrition and burnout,” Mendicino said. “The investment in the budget will help attract and retain new talent from schools at home and abroad.”
Mendicino said the budget would also help create safer and inclusive spaces for mental health support, and through digital sharing of medical information.
“By taking their health information and then sharing that information in real-time with their doctors, nurses and their personal support staff, we’re making sure we can serve the people who walk in.”
Mendicino said the budget would provide stronger health care and reduce wait times. He also recognized Bluewater Health’s tireless efforts to reduce surgery wait times during the pandemic.
“It’s that resilience that makes it so important that we support them,” he said.
Hospital President and CEO Paula Reaume-Zimmer discusses how they have been able to shorten surgery wait times over the past few years.
“Every day, the leaders have a meeting at 8 a.m. and they talk about the stress that’s going on, how they’re moving patients around, ensuring flow, and then if there’s capacity, they can maintain our surgical schedule.”
Reaume-Zimmer also said there are several things in the 2023 budget that will help Sarnia-Lambton.
“We expect an increase in our base funding, but the investment in the health workforce is really big,” she said. “We know that in order to recruit and retain skilled healthcare professionals and ally healthcare and any team across our hospitals, we need to innovate.”
Reaume-Zimmer also praised mental health support, which she said was a priority for the federal and provincial health ministries.
“We plan to launch our Ontario Youth Mental Health website in the near future, which is a fantastic website that young people can walk in,” she said. “There is no referral and navigation, no finding care, no walking in and asking for help. , we have to be as accessible as possible.”