Health Committee on Feb. 7th, 2023

[Susan Bisaillon]

Thank you.

I think a lot of the work you're doing with Bill C-22 is very exciting. I really encourage you to embrace that new legislation and see what we can do with it.

What I really want to emphasize today is that being born with a disability and a complexity should not mean that you are living below the poverty level. It's really addressing the poverty, and also making sure that as these children age out of childhood, when they reach 18 they have a successful transition and affordable place to live.

That would be my request to leave with you today. Thank you.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I listen to all four of you focusing on day care; on ensuring that our health care workforce is empowered, diverse and inclusive; and on strengthening the CCB and making sure that the most vulnerable and those who are in need are not left behind. This is very much aligned with what our government has been doing over the last seven years. I would like to thank you for your testimony today.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Next we have Ms. Goodridge, please, for five minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In that same vein, Ms. Bisaillon, I think the work you do and the work that your organization does is spectacular. In my community we're relatively northern and isolated, and we don't have lots of those extremely specialized services available, which means that lots of families that need those services end up travelling down to either Edmonton or Calgary and oftentimes end up relocating to those centres just in order to get the specialized care.

You highlighted having more services available in communities and having more respite. Can you expand a bit upon models that have worked in smaller centres to allow for some of those places to exist?

[Susan Bisaillon]

It's a great question.

We know that when children are born and have complexities and life-saving needs, the best place for them is in the large academic health science centres. We have those centres across the country. We talked about Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. We have them in Toronto.

The thing is, once these kids become stabilized, it's the development of really strong programs in these remote communities. You can have good respite programs. They may be small. It could be a small setting. Having those hub and spoke models and having that interconnection between.... If there was a program or organization that was provincial or national, you could have supports for those remote communities. The only time they would need to access the large academic centres in the large centres is when they have an acute episode. Then they would need to go there.

There are mechanisms to develop this and families shouldn't have to relocate. You can do it in small pockets. I think what COVID has made us do—which we've done extremely well—is pivot towards virtual care. There are opportunities to use virtual care technology. We had to switch overnight from going to in-house for all of these visits in academic centres to doing virtual care.

The technology exists. There are capabilities for monitoring children in these remote communities. It also gives you a sense of some precursors for when there is decline and when they should go in.

I don't think we should shy away from this notion of remote supports using technology, virtual care and hub and spoke models to support families close to home.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

We have one super special little kid in my community of Fort McMurray. Madden is dealing with Batten disease. For the first chunk of time, the family had to go down to Edmonton to get all of his injections.

Through working with the Stollery and the Stollery foundation, he's now able to get his injections in our community, which means the family has a bit more stability and more supports. Frankly, they don't have the same level of support when they're five hours from home.

These kinds of things are spectacular, and I'd love to see more. I think our communities benefit when we have more fulsome support of that.

Are any jurisdictions doing a better job when it comes to some of that innovative work?

[Susan Bisaillon]

I'm very well connected nationally. I chair a community of practice for health care professionals across the country, so I have a sense of that.

What I was trying to emphasize today is that we're still very much in our infancy around these programs. There are pockets that do it extremely well. When I look at the east coast, in Newfoundland, I see some really great home care options.

I've been working with my colleagues in British Columbia, who are doing some really neat work and expanding the notion of “medical complexities” into “health complexities”. Rather than just looking at the physical health and the mental health, we're trying to be broader in our thinking. Also, Alberta is doing some excellent work.

Everybody's trying to work together to build on what each province is doing, but we don't have an integrated, sustainable model. I think having those supports is really important.

To your point, families shouldn't have to move to these large cities. They can be successfully cared for. Technology and medical innovation are really exceptional. We need to be much more strategic and innovative. This committee has the ability to help us start to do some of those models.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Goodridge and Ms. Bisaillon. That brings us to the top of the hour.

I want to sincerely thank all the witnesses for being with us today. When the committee decided to embark on a study on children's health, we knew that it was a very broad, multi-faceted topic. That is evident in the diversity of the experience, expertise and advocacy that you've brought to this very interesting discussion. We're very grateful to you for that.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Is it the will of the committee to adjourn the meeting?

We're adjourned.