Finance committee  Mr. Chair, honourable members of the committee, thank you for having me today. I represent HealthCareCAN, the national voice of Canada's health care organizations and research hospitals. I am happy to have next to me Heidi Sveistrup, who is the chief executive officer and chief

Finance committee  My wife is a physician, but I'm not.

Finance committee  I'll start, and I'll ask Heidi to continue. Dominic Barton, who, as you all know, started this particular table, approached us and said he'd be interested in knowing what the research hospitals are doing in terms of innovation. When he did his study—his first study, that is—he c

Finance committee  Exactly. That's why I said that. However, the results and the outcome in terms of patient care, delivering an efficient and better system, are more seen in a hospital setting than at the university, and also the commercialization. The issue that we had, if I may, with ISED, with

Finance committee  Yes.

Health committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. HealthCareCAN is an organization that represents Canadian research hospitals, regional health authorities and health organizations. My thanks to the committee members for the opportunity to present to you today with my colleague, Dr. Brad Wouters,

Health committee  Last Friday, Dr. Kevin Smith, the CEO of UHN in Toronto, testified to the Standing Committee on Government Operations—

Health committee  —warning that Canada's research councils will likely see 10,000 to 15,000 jobs lost in the next few weeks if they are not granted access to some form of federal support. The federal government can avoid those layoffs by granting the research institutes based in health care organi

Health committee  Thank you very much for that very important question. I certainly would hope that, as I wrote in my article, SARS was really a wake-up call, and I think that COVID-19 is now seen as a clarion call. I think what you have to look at is the power that's given to the Public Health A

Health committee  You may recall that a few years back we did have a minister of state for public health. We no longer have a minister of state for public health. At one point, the level of delegation and reporting authority that person would have had were much higher than it is at this moment. I

Health committee  Mr. Thériault, I find your question very relevant. I would just like to add a new dimension to it, without, however, contradicting what you said. Today in Canada, most of our hospitals are operating at a capacity beyond what should be the norm. Often hospitals are operating at 1

Health committee  It certainly has an impact, and especially an impact on patients who are either vulnerable or older. It also has an impact on our ability to introduce new technologies within our hospital sector. I'm always reminded that one of the hospitals which I visited was receiving a gamma

Health committee  Yes, it would be something our organization would endorse. I find that the long-term care organizations have been left behind. They should be enshrined in the Canada Health Act. I think that would be a first step. They need to be a partner in the delivery of health care. They can

Health committee  I think they're managing it with a lot of challenges and difficulty. I think they're trying to get help through other health care providers within their own community. I know for a fact that within hospitals, staff who were assigned to a particular floor were reassigned to anothe

Health committee  Within each of the provinces, there are a lot of communications and meetings that are happening among these various hospitals to discuss PPE, ventilators and how best to deal with some of the patients who have come through the hospital. That's done at the provincial level, and it