'We're on catch-up': Health minister outlines plans for fixing the system

Dr. John Haggie is blunt about the state of the health-care system in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"It's not as good as it can be," Newfoundland and Labrador's health minister told the St. John's Morning Show. "We'll fix it. It's not going to be instant."

We'll fix it. It's not going to be instant.- John Haggie

The minister wasresponding to concerns raised during CBC's Critical Condition series, which culminated in a public forum Thursday.

Haggiesaidplans to reform the system are underway.

"I think you have to accept that we've had a system that really had no significant transformative effort made for maybe a decade," said Haggie, "and we're on catchup."

Long ER wait times

During the series, CBC invited members of the public to share their experiences with the health-care system, and any ideas for improving it. Dozens of people emailedmystory@cbc.ca.

Long waits in hospital emergency rooms were a common thread.

• Health Sciences scrambled to fix overcrowding weeks before ER photo went viral

On that point, Haggie said, "I think the issues around access particularly for seniors in emergency departments need to be looked at a different way."

The minister said community paramedicine pilot projects are about to begin on both the west coast of the island and in Central Newfoundland.

It's an approach the Paramedic Association of Newfoundland and Labrador has been pushing for.

• Blend of innovation and frustration heard at CBC health-care forum

Haggie said advanced-care paramedics could respond when, for example, seniors or residents of personal-care homes have emergencies, and then treat the patients on the spot without taking them to emergency rooms.

Haggie said figures from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick suggest that 40 per cent of ambulance calls are handled without taking the patient to an emergency department.

The aim of the pilot projects is to see if there would besimilar results in this province.

On reducing wait times

Wait times to see specialists are a frustrating issue for many of the people who emailed mystory@cbc.ca.

People described waiting more than two years for neurology appointments or to get in to see an ophthalmologist and get a date for cataract surgery.

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Those suffering from suspected cases of inflammatory arthritis can expect to wait 18 months before they can see a rheumatologist, even though their referral letters say they have an urgent need to see the specialist.

• 'We're not just numbers here': Patients complain specialist wait times too long

And data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows that in 2017, one in three people in Newfoundland and Labrador needing a knee replacement had to wait longer than the benchmark of six months.

The health minister maintained that once patients actually get in to see specialists, the wait times for treatment here match or exceed those in the rest of Canada.

"The problem is that the vast majority of specialists run private businesses in private offices," said Haggie. "We, as a health-care system, don't have any visibility into that."

He said his department is trying to figure out how to make improvements.

Access to psychiatrists

Several people who emailed mystory@cbc.ca complained of wait times of a year or more to see psychiatrists.

On that point, Haggie said patients tend to be referred automatically to a psychiatrist when in fact they may be waiting for the wrong intervention.

It's not quite as bad as everyone would make out.-John Haggie

The minister said taking a second look at referral letters and directing patients elsewhere when appropriate has reduced wait times for counselling in Burin to zero.

In Corner Brook, he said, those numbers went from 192 people waiting in March 2017, compared with 19 a year later.

"It's not quite as bad as everyone would make out," Haggie said, adding he wasn't trying to downplay the difficulties for those people who are waiting long periods for help.