Mr. Speaker, for your information I will be sharing my time with the hon. member from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik.
I am pleased to speak on the opposition motion, which I consider very important. I too have concerns about access to necessary health care, including emergency room services.
Crowded emergency rooms create numerous problems involving various factors. As we know, there is a shortage of doctors after hours, there are not enough beds available, and a good number of the available beds are occupied by patients requiring long term care because home care and community services do not meet the needs of these people.
Those are but a few of the reasons why emergency rooms may have to turn back ambulances for example.
As the health minister already said, this long-standing situation is unacceptable. That being said, we cannot logically deal with the issue of short term hospital services without studying the whole care program. We need an integrated health care system.
To increase accessibility, we have to change our practices and our way of delivering health care services. However, we must make appropriate changes that will ensure the future of our medicare system.
As was mentioned by my colleague, the Minister of Health, two elements are essential. First, a change is needed in the way primary health care services are delivered in our communities. Second, home and community care must be provided so as to ensure that long term, rehabilitative and chronic care beds are available as required, and to free beds for short term care in hospitals.
Those are also the main priorities that health ministers have indicated at their last annual meeting. We all agree on the need to resolve those urgent concerns. Now we must take action. We need a plan to implement these changes.
If primary health care were provided in a different way in communities across the country, the problem of crowded emergency rooms would be resolved. Different models were proposed. However, if we do not change the way primary health care services are provided, we will not meet the needs of the communities. We will not succeed in alleviating the pressure on the emergency rooms.
If we do not put the emphasis on prevention and health promotion, we will not be able to take maximum advantage of the skills of all the health care providers.
Therefore, we must agree first on the kind of reform needed to provide integrated and full primary health care services. Then we must develop outside hospitals ways of dealing with those who need home and community care. I think there is a direct link between the availability of home and community care and the pressure on the hospitals.
If emergency wards are crowded, it is due in part to the shortage of space caused by patients who cannot go home, but do not have access to chronic, rehabilitative or long term care beds. They are stuck there and they occupy the beds that those on stretchers in the emergency wards could use. In this respect, home care is one solution among others.
Through facilitation, co-ordination and co-operation, the government will help the provinces and territories to implement a clear and coherent vision of a renewed, integrated and comprehensive health care system.
Let us talk about funding. As we know, the premiers expressed the need for additional funding for the health care system and will continue to do so. Last year the federal government invested $11.5 billion in health care through the Canada health and social transfer, or CHST. It was the most important one-time investment ever made by this government.
Increased federal funding for health care was provided to the provinces and territories to them alleviate immediate public concerns, such as overcrowded emergency rooms, long waiting lists and diagnostic services.
As we all know, budget 2000 increased by $2.5 billion over four years CHST funding for health care and post-secondary education. This increase raised the level of transfers to $15.5 billion for 2000-01 and subsequent years. Through the increase in cash transfers, coupled with increasing tax transfers, the CHST will reach an all time high of $30.8 billion in 2000-01.
By 2003-04, total transfers to the CHST should reach $32.7 billion.
Increased federal transfers will provide for a stable growth of transfers and will ensure that high quality health care will be available to anyone who needs it.
We have fully restored what was commonly known as the health component of the CHST to the levels existing before the spending reduction period of the mid 1990s.
However, this is not only about money, it is about the way this money is used. It is crucial to understand that the Canadian medicare system will not be able to give Canadians an appropriate access to quality health care in the years to come if it is not renewed considerably through co-operation and innovations. Status quo is not an option.
With respect to the management and delivery of health care services, innovative approaches to renewing Canada's public system of health care will be necessary.
Clearly, the challenge will be to find a way to accomplish this while maintaining the fundamentals of medicare. Through the health transition fund, the Government of Canada provides funds for innovative pilot projects, based on four priorities, including primary health care, home care and community care.
Many projects funded by the HTF look at ways to improve the use of emergency rooms and access to alternative services.
HTF projects allow us to collect and analyse data on what works and what does not. We must cope with change, learn from the past and use the knowledge we gain from the pilot projects carried out across our country.
Consequently, in order to settle the crisis in the emergency rooms, we must start by dealing with primary health care, home care and community health care.
To this end, the Minister of Health wrote to his provincial counterparts, proposing a meeting in May to develop a plan that would make these items a reality. The minister will certainly keep you informed of any new development arising from this meeting.
I repeat that the answer is not simply to increase funding. The federal government, the provinces and the territories must work together. If we keep on doing what we have always done, we will continue to achieve the same results, with emergency rooms turning away ambulances and problems regarding accessibility to services.
We have the necessary resources, incentives and environment to implement changes that will allow us to improve our health care system and to provide Canadians with a comprehensive, integrated health care system.
Canadians are proud of their health care system, which was built over the years. We will protect it and make the changes necessary to ensure that it remains a part of our Canadian heritage.