Action To Promote Social Justice

Investing In Personal Health

Mr. Speaker, no function of the provincial government is more important to our people than the provision of health and community services. Our geography may be a challenge, but for our government it will not act as a barrier to hinder the provision of health and community services to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. One of the challenges driving increases in health spending is the dispersal of our people along thousands of kilometres of coastline and hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of land. We pride ourselves on our public health and community services system and invest nearly fifty cents of every program dollar to ensure it serves the many needs of our citizens, young and old, wherever they may live. This year, we are increasing our investment in health and community services, bringing expenditures to an unprecedented $2.2 billion.

To promote physical fitness and healthy living, we are proceeding with a number of initiatives to benefit young and old. This year, we will launch our Recreation and Sport Strategy and Action Plan, which is designed to promote the many benefits of sport and physical activity – health benefits, social benefits, educational and economic benefits alike. With incremental funding this year of $2.39 million, this strategy will encourage and enable more and more Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to take greater responsibility for their health through positive engagement in recreation and sport pursuits with a strong fitness component.

We are dedicating $100,000 this year to support the sharing of school facilities with community user groups, to enable school boards to improve their access while protecting these valuable resources for our children’s instruction.

In recognition of the need to replace or renovate health care infrastructure, we will spend almost $68 million this year for ongoing and new projects including renovations to the forensic and developmentally delayed units at the Waterford Hospital in St. John’s, design and site work for a new health centre in Lewisporte, work toward a St. John’s centre for clinical research, and a new office building for health and community services staff in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. We will continue with long -term care facilities in Clarenville, Corner Brook and Happy Valley-Goose Bay, along with continuation of the Humberwood Provincial Addictions Centre in Corner Brook, the Grand Bank health centre, redevelopment of the James Paton Memorial Hospital in Gander, further work for a new health centre in Labrador West, and planning for a health centre at Flower’s Cove.

We are also investing $22.3 million for new diagnostic and capital equipment, which represents a $12.3 million increase above the base funding. This investment will purchase two new linear accelerators to expand radiation treatment capacity at the Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Cancer Centre, cardiac cath lab equipment and monitors, a Bi Planar Angiography machine, a new x-ray machine for the Carbonear General Hospital, a CT Scanner for diagnostic imaging at Western Memorial Regional Hospital and a CT scanner for Sir Thomas Roddick Hospital in Stephenville.

In keeping with its commitment to improve access to health services, we are investing $2 million to extend the hours of operation for the MRI units in St. John’s and Corner Brook, improve pre-hospital care in St. John’s, enhance mammography and CT services at Carbonear and expand endoscopy services at Gander and Grand Falls- Windsor.

Other measures will enable Eastern Health to open additional beds in Bonavista and St. Lawrence, implement a new bilateral cochlear implant service and engage a new medical flight team for the provincial air ambulance service; they will enable Central Health to provide enhanced social work services on Fogo Island and at the Grand Falls- Windsor dialysis unit and cover additional operating costs at the new cancer centres in Gander and Grand Falls-Windsor, they will enable Western Health to meet the growing demand for dialysis services and provide an enhanced stroke care program; and they will enable Labrador-Grenfell Health to implement a respiratory therapy service at one of its facilities, provide an enhanced laboratory service at St. Anthony, and provide enhanced intervention services for children in Labrador.

In order to address the wait list of 200 children and the wait time in some areas of up to a year for preschool therapeutic speech language pathology services, we will provide $396,100 to create five new positions.

This year, we are dedicating $1.6 million to strengthen the province’s mental health and addictions services, including $800,000 to implement the new Mental Health Care and Treatment Act, and also $800,000 to continue implementing our Mental Health Policy Framework with specific initiatives such as an anti-stigma campaign, additional addictions counselors and mental health case managers, and supportive care for clients. We are also investing $575,000 to address problem gambling. And we are providing $228,800 to establish a new Eating Disorders Program, which will operate through Eastern Health five days a week as an outpatient day treatment program.

We will also invest in our health care professionals by supporting an eight-week orientation for graduate nurses in frontline practice through an investment of $1 million cost-shared with the Regional Integrated Health Authorities.

Promoting public health is a priority initiative identified in last year’s budget. To follow through on our 2006 commitment to hire 39 public health nurses over two years, we are committing $1.6 million for the cost of positions approved last year and13 new positions across the province. We are providing $1.5 million to continue providing vaccines for pneumonia, meningitis and chicken pox that were originally financed under the Federal Trust Fund.

Poor dental health can have significant health consequences for young people, but dental work can be very expensive. This year, we are investing $2.3 million to expand dental health services to include young people from 13 to 17 in low-income families and also to provide sealants for children.

With an investment of $1.4 million, we will provide insulin pumps and supplies for children with Type I diabetes, an initiative that will benefit some 100 children and another 30 who are diagnosed annually.

Every year for the past three years, our government increased the budget for the provincial drug program, adding effective new therapies while expanding the number of people covered through the introduction of a new low-income drug program. This year, we will expand the Newfoundland and Labrador Prescription Drug Program to include coverage of new drug therapies for primary pulmonary hypertension, psoriasis, ankylosing spondilitis and advanced metastatic breast cancer. We are also moving ahead this year with a major initiative to reform the Prescription Drug Program in ways that will effectively address high drug costs while ensuring people in comparable situations are treated equitably. This program will benefit, in particular, individuals with multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis and cancer.