On behalf of the Canadian Healthcare Association, I would like to say that I am very happy to be with you today.
I'd just like to explain that the Canadian Healthcare Association is the federation of provincial and territorial hospital and health organizations across Canada. Through our members, we represent a broad continuum of services. Here we include acute care, home and community care, long-term care, public health, mental health, palliative care, and so on. Our members are the regional health authorities, hospitals, and facilities and agencies that serve Canadians and are governed by trustees who act in the public interest. Together our network comprises over 900 hospitals and more than 4,500 health facilities.
Having heard from my colleagues representing various professions--and of course from the Health Action Lobby, to which we belong--I'd now like to offer the employer perspective on health human resources, as my members are the employers of many of those who work in the health system.
Broadly defined, our board has defined that our goal is to achieve a stable health workforce with the right number, mix, and distribution of health providers in order to provide access to high-quality care for all Canadians.
We all know why it's so important to address employability issues in the health system. We all know that health is the number one issue for Canadians. But maybe we don't know that the health system in Canada is a major employer. It employs 1.1 million people. One in ten Canadians is employed in the health system. They constitute a highly educated and skilled workforce, greatly contributing to not only the health of Canadians but to our country's tax base as well.
What might not always be known also is that the cost of labour, the contribution of labour, is a major component of our health system. Now, we ought to look at this as a cost, and of course we have to look at it as an investment, but employers naturally always look at the bottom line--as do governments, I'm afraid. What we'd really like to say is that without health human resources, and without making the investments in these costs, we won't have the health system that we value so much.
We all know about the global health shortage; you've heard my colleagues talk about it. We all know, of course, that if we don't deal with health human resource shortages, we won't be able to meet health needs and sustain our publicly funded system, without which we'll lose an important area of competitive advantage for Canadians. Therefore, the federal government must play a leadership role in dealing with HHR issues, and I'd like to address a few of those issues.
First, you heard my colleague mention the need for a pan-Canadian planning mechanism, one that would bring together key stakeholders, key players, including government, so that we can anticipate and plan for future needs and changes in the health system. This is absolutely essential. This body has to link health, labour, immigration, and education policies. Without that we won't be able to meet needs in the health system of the future. It doesn't matter whether we call it a mechanism, a body, or a strategy, we have to have this approach.
I'd like to touch on a few other issues that are particularly important from the employer perspective. First, there's the whole issue of entry to practice. Here we're talking about improving the supply of health providers. There are a number of facets to it, including entry-to-practice credentials. We're pleased that there is now a process for an FPT table, where people are discussing the minimum entry-to-practice requirements for a number of provider groups and professional groups.
We're also pleased that health employers are going to be consulted--or at least we hope they are--about any changes to credentialing for entry to practice. We realize that with a shortage of health workers, if we do anything...and that's not to say we shouldn't. But if we do anything to increase the minimum entry-to-practice credentials, there are issues of shortages of workers and so on; we need periods to integrate and restructure, that type of thing. In any event, we need to stress that employers have to be at the table when these decisions are made, because they hire the people who provide the care.
The other issue is education system capacity. Frankly, we think the federal government has to contribute to this, as do the provinces. We need to increase enrolments for health professions and health disciplines. We also need to supply extra funds for the infrastructure developments needed to accommodate these increased enrolments. We can't forget about that.
We also have to pay for the price, I think, of having appropriate clinical and placement opportunities for health human resources. Nobody can provide health care to Canadians without the opportunity to have a clinical setting, and this includes medical residency positions. There's a role for the federal government to play in helping to fund these training opportunities in the health system across this country.
You've already heard my colleagues talking about foreign-trained providers. The Canadian Healthcare Association believes that Canada must ultimately be self-sufficient, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work to integrate as much as possible those people who have the credentials to work in the Canadian health system.
We've heard about the data, and we'd like to hear mentioned in particular the work of the Canadian Institute for Health Information in helping to provide data. But the job isn't entirely done. Frankly, if we have this pan-Canadian mechanism that we're talking about, we're going to need more and more data to be able to meet the health needs of the future. So a pan-Canadian approach is absolutely essential.
We think if we make progress in these various areas dealing with entry-to-practise credentials, clinical and placement training opportunities, and the educational sector, making sure we work together to achieve our common goals, we can make progress in meeting the health needs of Canadians.
We've often said that money is needed to support a health system, but we've all heard today that it isn't money alone; it's health human resources. On the other hand, whenever we say it isn't about the money, we also have to have the appropriate resources devoted to achieving the objectives we all agree to.