Health Committee on April 9th, 2020

[Linda Lapointe]

No, we have not halted reuse of equipment. For the time being, in Quebec, we are not at the point of having to reuse equipment, particularly masks, but we know that healthcare establishments are considering this practice. Apparently, one establishment in Quebec City has found a way to disinfect equipment. However, we don't know what disinfection methods that employer intends to put in place. At the moment, we do not reuse or disinfect equipment, but if we were to run out, it could be a solution.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Then I'm not exactly sure what you meant by “pulling out the stops”. I know that here in B.C. we're actually begging community organizations and businesses to donate PPE. I believe that's helping, but it's hard to tell.

I have a third question, and it would be for Dr. Naveed Mohammad.

At our last meeting, Dr. Alan Drummond said there was a lesson that we absolutely haven't learned. We started out talking about the surge capacity, and I think you've made it clear that surge capacity was created in your area by cancelling other medical procedures. Dr. Alan Drummond mentioned the fact that we're actually cancelling cancer surgeries to make way for that surge capacity.

The lesson he felt we hadn't learned was the idea of field hospitals in order to be able to take care of COVID patients separately from the regular needs. I wonder if you could speak to that, because you obviously have a field hospital, but you are actually creating surge capacity by cancelling regular and necessary health procedures.

[Dr. Naveed Mohammad]

I'll answer it in two parts.

Surge capacity is not a new problem in Canada, or in Ontario, or certainly in our region here in the Central West LHIN. This is being highlighted right now because of the COVID crisis, but every year during the flu season, hospitals across Canada and across the U.S. suffer significant surge issues, which is where hallway medicine comes from. I think that's the lesson. If we can use this opportunity to learn that lesson, it will be great, because even if we control COVID, we're still going to have surge capacity issues next year during the fall flu season and in the year afterward.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Would you disagree with Dr. Alan Drummond about the idea of having field hospitals where we could keep the COVID patients isolated, then?

[Dr. Naveed Mohammad]

I wouldn't disagree with that, but what I'm trying to say is that there are field hospitals that are now being set up at our peer hospitals in Toronto, and we're also looking at a bigger field hospital plan. However, I think it is a shame if a first world country that most of the world wants to immigrate to is using field hospitals to meet its annual surge.

Yes, right now we need to use field hospitals, but I think the federal and the provincial governments have to work together to realize that the number of beds that we have to serve our population on a daily basis is currently significantly below what we actually need.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mrs. Jansen.

We go now to Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Kelloway, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello, colleagues.

To the witnesses, thank you for coming today and thanks to all the essential workers from coast to coast to coast.

My first question is to President Dingwall.

We know that our government will be launching a mental health portal for Canadians, as the Minister of Health has said in press conferences, and I would like to know if you're hearing from your students about the impact this has had on their mental health. That's my first question. Also, is your university taking measures to support students during this time?

[David Dingwall]

Thank you for the question.

With regard to mental health, I think the number of cases has significantly increased in terms of the numbers of questions and students reaching out for forms of comfort and attention. The anxiety level is beyond what we've all seen in the past, and we have a number of students who find it quite difficult to concentrate on studies and practise social distancing. They're worried about their families, wherever they may come from, and they have very little access to the kinds of necessities of life that we just take for granted.

When you take all of those things together, the mental health and anguish are real. We at the university, through our student services, through consultations with student representatives and through parents, are trying to put some different packages together, whether it be with regard to food, tuition or meaningful dialogue.

Our faculty have reached out to the student body, in terms of…

This is exam time as we now speak. Students are writing, so faculty have reached out to try to accommodate them through remote learning. It's gone reasonably well; there are always gaps, but there is a concerted effort by the faculty, the administration and student services to be helpful to our students who find mental health to be a real challenge.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Dingwall.

I have another question, and it is around student employment.

The Prime Minister announced new changes regarding the Canada summer jobs program to ensure that students could still work and get the experience they need during this tough time. I would like to hear your thoughts on this announcement and on how applicable it is at this time in terms of perhaps even changing the scope of what we traditionally know as summer work.

[David Dingwall]

As all of us who have gone to university know, students would like to work during the summer months to help to pay for their tuition and for their finances going forward. The program is certainly welcome, but what are employers going to do? Are they going to be reaching out to have students come to their place of business and work if they have other citizens and workers who are laid off? We will have to wait and see, but it's certainly a welcome addition, particularly for our student body, because most of them do like to work during the summer months in order to gather that kitty for the tuition in their academic year, but it is still a wait-and-see situation.

I hope employers—public sector employers, private sector employers, government agencies—will take advantage of this new program that the Prime Minister has announced.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You have one minute.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. I'm going to stick with President Dingwall for my last question.

You were an MP for, I believe, 17 years, and a cabinet minister, a minister of health, as has been mentioned during this session. Do you have anything you can compare this to during your time in government, or around the cabinet table as a minister of health or a minister of public works? Was there anything comparable that you dealt with during your time? Obviously this is unprecedented, but are there some similarities or some terms of reference you can call upon and share with us?

[David Dingwall]

Not really. We had to deal with the blood crisis and we had an inquiry into that. We had the AIDS issue and we had the smoking programs, but in terms of this particular virus that has hit us as a country, that has hit the world, I haven't seen anything like it.

If you go back in history and look at what the World Health Organization has studied, whether it be smallpox or whatever, this is quite rare in terms of Canadian society. I think there are so many lessons that we're going to learn as a result of this particular virus hitting us the way it has, but I don't think we can miss the opportunity.

We can talk about framework; we can talk about consultation; we can talk about programs, but unless there are statutory obligations on individuals and providers and health care organizations, it will be all for naught. When people have to lay a report before the Parliament of Canada and tell members of Parliament what they have done with that $250 million on research, or whatever it is, that's an obligation they take quite seriously.

I'm all in favour of better frameworks and better communications, but without statutory obligations, we will not hit our objectives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway. We will go now to Mr. Jeneroux.

Mr. Jeneroux, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today, and thank you as well as to your accompanying associations for all the work you're doing on this pandemic.

We on the opposition side are looking to ask tough questions, but largely in the role of better supporting and advising this and future governments on any sort of pandemic planning, so I appreciate your being able to weigh in.

My first question will be for Mr. Culbert.

Correct me if I'm wrong. The national emergency stockpile, you said, could have been in better shape prior to this. Is that a correct statement?

[Ian Culbert]

Yes.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Great.

Follow me as I walk through some of this timeline. We saw that the minister was advised in a February 10 memo to work with the provinces and advise the provinces on stockpile information only if asked. February 10 was past the date on which, I believe, 16 tonnes of PPE materials were shipped to China.

Could you comment on where there could maybe have been better planning? Maybe the optics of that aren't so good when you're speaking about having the stockpile in better readiness for when the virus eventually did hit Canada.

[Ian Culbert]

Certainly.

First, I don't think it was ever imagined that the national emergency stockpile would be able to supply all of Canada in this kind of an outbreak. Keep in mind that SARS was limited to Ontario and B.C. predominantly. H1N1 was a different kind of outbreak, so the types of supplies required were different.

First and foremost, we have to rethink what the national emergency stockpile should look like in the future to respond to the evolution of pandemics.

At the point the shipment was made, I believe it was ascertained that the risk to Canadians was still very low and that this was a way of moving the front line of the pandemic outside of Canada. If we were able to stop transmission in China, we might be able to reduce the numbers here. That's what public health policy tries to do: keep that containment circle as large as possible.

In hindsight, was it the best decision? Possibly not, but I think it was made in good faith, with the best information available at the time.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Culbert.

For Madame Lapointe, I have a similar question.

Again, the 16 tonnes of material was sent to China days before the minister was advised about this and sharing this information with her colleagues. I'm curious if you can comment from the perspective of your members—the nurses, the assistant nurses and the respiratory therapists—on what the optics of that look like and perhaps some better planning that could have been in place.

[Linda Lapointe]

Absolutely. I want to believe that the decision was made based on the situation at the time, but we knew very well that the snapshot on February 10 was not going to be the same. Epidemiologists and experts did not seem to think that Quebec in particular would see such a significant surge. In my opinion, we should not have taken the risk. I understand that we wanted to reduce the spread, but we should have at least made sure that our healthcare professionals across Canada had the necessary equipment.

We now find ourselves with healthcare professionals having been unprotected for the past three weeks. We're not there yet, but in other countries about 14% of healthcare workers have been infected by the virus and there have been deaths, particularly in Italy and Spain. I would hope that there will be no deaths among our healthcare professionals in Canada, that would be unfortunate.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Just out of curiosity, Madame Lapointe, was your association consulted on any of that? Has it been consulted on the emergency stockpile by the minister herself?

[Linda Lapointe]

No, we were not consulted at all with respect to the national stockpile. Even at the provincial level, we asked questions regularly about the amount of equipment in each facility and overall. We never received any answers to our questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Jeneroux.

We'll go now to Dr. Powlowski.

Dr. Powlowski, go ahead for five minutes, please.