Health Minister John Haggie says the provincial government has a plan to restructure the health care system.
Haggie was responding to former Saskatchewan Health Minister Dr. Janice MacKinnon who recently addressed a conference hosted by the NL Employers Council.
MacKinnon served under NDP Premier Roy Romanow when Saskatchewan was facing dire fiscal circumstances.
She suggested that Newfoundland and Labrador put a plan in place to address its fiscal situation before it’s too late and the decisions are made for us. She says the province might start with reducing the 31 hospitals it is currently operating.
Newfoundland and Labrador currently spends $1,000 more per person on health care than the national average.
Minister Haggie says health care expenditures have remained the same in Newfoundland and Labrador for some time.
He says our health care expenditures will be in the middle of the pack if you plot that out over the next three years. Haggie says MacKinnon acknowledged that we’re more like a territory than a province when it comes to population density.
West of Trinity Bay, the province’s population density is actually lower than Nunavut, yet our per capital spending on health care is lower than that of any of the three territories.