My name is Ivy Bourgeault and I'm speaking on behalf of the Canadian Health Workforce Network, a pan-Canadian knowledge-exchange network of researchers and knowledge users dedicated to bringing the best evidence to provide solutions to health workforce challenges.
Let me begin by stating plainly that, if Canada's health workforce were a patient, it would be in critical condition. It needs immediate attention. The committee has heard from many who have provided testimony to date that the pandemic has caused unprecedented burnout, distress and record-level vacancies due to health and safety concerns, unsustainable workloads, cancelled vacations and forced redeployment.
Then there's the violence.
In this committee's 2019 report, you noted that health workers are four times more likely to face workplace violence than those in any other profession, yet most of it goes unreported due to a culture of acceptance. Recognizing that this requires action beyond this committee, we are still waiting for the recommended public awareness campaign and pan-Canadian prevention framework. We are still waiting, also, for the much-needed update to the pan-Canadian health workforce strategy to address staffing shortages, which this committee recognized exacerbates the violence health workers experience.
COVID-19 has traumatized Canada's health workforce, but most of these challenges predate the pandemic. The pandemic has sharply exposed the lack of clear answers to the most basic questions about Canada's health workforce. For example, we know little about how many health providers work in critical sectors such as home care, long-term care and mental health care.
Canada lags well behind comparable OECD countries in terms of health workforce data and decision-making tools. Health workforce research receives less than 3% of health services and policy research funds, and less than 1% of all national health research funds. Other OECD countries provide nationwide support for evidence-based decisions, but here in Canada we are left to make critical decisions in the dark.
This lack of very basic human resources knowledge is particularly egregious because health workers account for more than 10% of all employed Canadians and over two-thirds of health care spending in Canada, which amounted to $175 billion in 2019 or nearly 8% of Canada's total GDP. Recognizing these facts, all levels of government, including the federal government, play an essential role in sound policy development, strategic health workforce planning and health system stewardship.
To date, more than 65 health care organizations and 300 health workforce experts and organizational leaders have signed on to a call to action for the federal government to take a lead in supporting provinces, territories, regions, hospitals, health authorities and training programs in investing in better health workforce data and decision-making tools.
In our brief to the committee we put forward a set of promising evidence-informed solutions for consideration. Our preferred option, based on existing Canadian models and leading international practices, is for the federal government to create a dedicated coordinating health workforce agency with a mandate to enhance existing data infrastructure and decision-support tools for strategic planning, policy and management across Canada. This would be done in a similar fashion to the way the Public Health Agency of Canada was created after our last SARS crisis—a crisis dwarfed by COVID-19.
In addition to addressing needed data and decision-making infrastructure, an agency could address the immediate challenges by gathering and sharing leading evidence-informed practices to retain health workers and foster the return of those who recently left, while also informing Canadian-focused recruitment strategies—the new three Rs of health workforce management—retain, return and recruit.
Those working in health care today need to know that a better future lies ahead. They are tired, and a great resignation looms large. Patients in critical condition require follow-up care, ongoing monitoring and support as well as measures to prevent critical illness from happening again. This is exactly what we need for the health workforce.
The public understands this. Overall, nine out of 10 Canadians in a public opinion poll from this past March said they were concerned about the mental health of health care workers. Eight out of 10 were also concerned about what this meant for their access to and the quality of health care.
Action is needed now. The status quo must be seen for what it is—the most expensive and the least tenable option going forward.
I'd be pleased to address any of these or other points of the committee. Thank you again for this opportunity.