Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members of the health committee. I am joined here by my colleague, Dr. Susan Rvachew, and we just want to thank you on behalf of Speech-Language and Audiology Canada for the opportunity to speak to you today about our professions.
Our members focus on prevention, assessment and management of communications, swallowing, hearing and balance disorders across the lifespan. We represent over 7,000 members, who are often assisted by communication health assistants and work in a wide range of settings, including schools, hospitals, early years centres, long-term care facilities and in private practice.
In particular, early intervention from our members set up success for children in the critical ages of zero to six through detection of hearing loss and therapies for speech and/or language delay. Our services are integral to the care, dignity and quality of life for people living in long-term care facilities due to the high prevalence of communications, swallowing, hearing and balance disorders in seniors. These difficulties affect personal and caregiving relationships and are also associated with loss of autonomy, isolation and caregiver stress—and I know, as we can all attest, the ability of residents and facility staff to effectively communicate is paramount for everyone's health and safety.
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of our members working in health care settings were redeployed to assist with pandemic response, further contributing to burnout. Moreover, our members play an important part of COVID recovery as many SLPs help patients with speech or swallowing issues post-ventilation.
As a result of the pandemic closures, many infants missed their newborn screen test. According to the Ontario Ministry of Health, two out of every one thousand babies have hearing loss at birth and two more develop it by age five. As a result of hearing impairment, children have difficulty with their speech and language, which can lead to academic, behavioural and emotional issues. Closing schools and day cares impacts the language and literacy of children and has added to the burnout and heavy caseload of school-based SLPs. Already, we know that 45% of indigenous children are missing their literacy benchmarks and that Canada lags behind other developed countries.
Currently, the number of SLPs and audiologists within Canada is not meeting the needs of the population, in particular the growing aging population. Although Canada's population totals around 12% of the U.S. population, the number of Canadian SLPs is around 3% of the number of U.S. SLPs. This poses an issue because the number of SLPs is too small to provide quality treatment to the large and growing number of people with communication and swallowing problems in Canada.
Recently, Northwest Territories Health Minister Julie Green said that adults must wait 19 months to see an audiologist in the Beaufort Delta and 26 months in Yellowknife. There are currently only two audiologists in the Northwest Territories. According to the Health Sciences Association of B.C., early intervention therapies, including SLP therapies, have the longest wait times of any child development centre program. Currently, it is not unusual for children never to end up having access to an SLP before entering kindergarten or to wait months or years before accessing service.
This lack of service for pre-school age children is particularly acute for indigenous children, with devastating consequences for their literacy levels, hearing health, school success, social and emotional health and their vocational outcomes.
As well, according to the Canadian occupational projection system, over the period or 2019 to 2028, the number of job openings arising from the expansion of demand and replacement demand for audiologists and speech-language pathologists is expected to total 3,800 while the number of job seekers is expected to only total 2,800.
As with many of our health care professions, rural and remote areas across the country face issues with recruitment and retention of their workforce. Therefore, we implore the government to recommend and endorse the following initiatives.
We must ensure that speech-language pathologists and audiologists are eligible for the Canada student loan forgiveness program, in particular those who set up practice in rural and remote communities.
We implore the government to provide funding for provinces that will work with partners to create, implement and manage innovative short and long-term strategies and programs that support the recruitment and retention of SLPs and audiologists.
We would ask the that government provide incentives or support to universities to expand or create SLP or audiology programs.
We must invest in telehealth infrastructure as a means of improving access to SLP and audiology services, particularly in rural and remote communities, including our indigenous communities.
We would also like to mention that we support the recommendations provided to HESA by the Canadian Health Workforce Network, who are doing such important work in this area.
We thank you for your time today and we encourage any questions you may have.