Mr. Leonard Evans (Brandon East): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I rise on this occasion to exercise my right to express a grievance in the House, and that is specifically with regard to the inadequate supply of doctors in my constituency, indeed the city of Brandon and indeed the entire Westman area.
As members may know, a rally was held about a month ago, in fact on May 25 in the Keystone Centre at Brandon, which was attended by well in excess of 500 people, who I might add responded to an ad, one ad in the paper one time to come to this meeting, and with no additional effort on my part to speak of we had this overwhelming attendance.
Mr. Ben Sveinson, Acting Speaker, in the Chair
Mr. Acting Speaker, on that occasion I announced that I would have a petition for members of the community to sign, and indeed we distributed the petition to those at the rally. I left them with the attendees to see whether they would care to sign the petition and get others to do so. I guess we mentioned it once I think in the press, maybe twice in the press since then by way of news, not an ad. Lo and behold, we received over 2,000 signatures, and they are still coming in.
We have over 2,000 people, I am sure of every political stripe, who have taken the time to sign these petitions, so well over 2,000. They are still coming in, and, as I said, essentially unsolicited with no organized effort on my part or any of my assistants to attempt to collect these. I believe what this does, along with the large attendance at the rally, is to indicate to the government and to all of us the depth of concern and the seriousness of the problem of inadequate doctor supply.
It does indicate that people are very concerned. In fact, I would go so far as to say, Mr. Acting Speaker, that there is fear among people that they will not get the medical services they require. I have had many phone calls. We have had letters. People raising the problem of just simply not being able to obtain a doctor. Indeed, at the rally there was one person who works in a clinic, I believe it was the Brandon Clinic, who said, in fact asked the question of the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik): what are you going to do about ensuring that we can have doctors? Because she maintained that she had dozens of people coming to her daily and weekly to ask to see a doctor, and she had to refuse them. She said that we do not have any doctors available to treat you or to deal with your problem or your ailment or your illness. It is simply the fact.
This lady was one of dozens and dozens of people who lined up at the microphone during the evening. We had about a two-and-a-half-hour session, and most of that time there were people from the community asking questions of the Minister of Health, who was on a panel then, along with, I might add, the official opposition Health critic, plus the chairman of the Regional Health Authority of Brandon, plus the representative of the Manitoba Nurses' Union, and also a Dr. J. Duncan representing the Manitoba Medical Association. So we had a panel of five. Many of the questions were addressed to the Minister of Health, and this was one of many questions.
Obviously, there was a question about the lack of obstetricians and pediatrician services. Many questions were asked by women who were expecting a child, very concerned about what they were going to do when it was time for the baby to be born. But it was beyond that. We had senior citizens come to the mike. We had ordinary citizens asking: what are you going to do about the supply of doctors. As I said, there was this one person who worked for a particular clinic in Brandon saying and having to tell people, sorry, we do not have any doctors for you. We do not have any doctors to refer you to, and so it is just not a matter of lack of specialists because that is a concern too. We have lost dermatologists, ear, nose and throat people in the past and others.
Of course, the whole question of pediatricians was a major issue in the last couple of months, but it is beyond that. It is simply a matter of general physicians, general practitioners not being available, and they are not available because some have simply decided to leave the community to go elsewhere, and some have decided to retire. For these reasons we do not have the supply.
Mr. Marcel Laurendeau, Deputy Speaker, in the Chair
Now this petition that I was hoping to hand to the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) today but obviously cannot, I can and do so for obvious reasons to members of the House, but I will certainly see that he gets the message from these 2,000-plus people from the Westman area, that they want the government to implement a Comprehensive Physicians Resource Plan to recruit and retain doctors in Brandon, because that is part of the petition. I might add the other part of the petition dealt with urging the government to enter into third-party binding arbitration with the Manitoba Medical Association, but that was done by the government, and I congratulate the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) for finally moving in that direction.
But the other part of the petition is what we want some action on. Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is not as though this is a new item that we should rationally try and plan to get more doctors in Manitoba outside of Winnipeg. In fact, I have before me or with me a letter dated June 9 co-signed by Dr. Ian Goldstine and Roberta Ellis, who is associate deputy of the Department of Health to the Minister of Health, saying, on behalf of the Manitoba Medical Services Council, we are pleased to provide you with recommendations regarding the Comprehensive Physicians Resource Plan. The letter goes on to refer to the fact that on May 22, 1996, his predecessor, the former Minister of Health, instructed the Manitoba Medical Services Council to establish a working group to review, assess and if feasible develop an action plan for the implementations of specific recommendations contained in the Comprehensive Physicians Resource Plan as recommended by the Manitoba Medical Services Council on March 16, 1996. I am reading partly from this letter.
But the fact is, Mr. Deputy Speaker, no action was taken on these recommendations. There were various recommendations to ease the shortage of doctors outside of Winnipeg, and the working group dealt with four recommendations, including fee differentials, the fact that there should be financial incentives for people in remote areas and rural areas as required.
The report itself, I have a copy of the working group report. It is entitled Working Group on Physicians Resources, the draft report to the Manitoba Medical Services Council, where they delineate in some detail a point system for setting fees in the various areas of the province, an incentive scheme. A lot of thought has been given this by very expert people.
Secondly, there is some reference to relocation allowances, to allow doctors to easily move out of Winnipeg or wherever they are in Canada to that particular community. Also suggested was extending a loans program for medical students and to do more by way of attracting medical students who were born and raised in rural Manitoba and to provide particular incentives for them, also to provide for more incentives for women to come into medical school at the University of Manitoba to be trained as doctors and to be available in the various communities. So those are some of the suggestions. So, in a way then, perhaps we are beating our head against a brick wall because this is not a new idea to have a Physicians Resource Plan, but it is an idea that has not been acted upon.
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Now I know the minister has stated that doctors have been recruited from South Africa, and there were a number coming to Manitoba to fill different positions around the province. That is fine and I have no problem with that. I understand the South African doctors meet our standards, and we have no difficulty in easily accepting them and integrating them into the medical services community in the province of Manitoba. In fact, there may be doctors from other countries as well. But we do know that in our midst are several doctors--I do not know, 20 or 30, there are quite a number of doctors--who have actually resided in Manitoba for some time but for whatever reason are not accepted by the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons because apparently they have not met a certain standard. I ask myself why cannot these people be given an opportunity to upgrade or do whatever they have to by way of training and retraining at the School of Medicine at the University of Manitoba to bring them up to standard.
In fact, I met one individual myself, a young woman who is from Latin America, very articulate, very bright, very frustrated because she could not practise medicine in Manitoba. She loved Manitoba, and she wanted to stay in Manitoba. She was prepared to go anywhere in Manitoba, but she was not allowed to do so because of particular restrictions. But she would be a great candidate for upgrading, retraining or whatever to fulfill this need.
But there is a problem of bringing in doctors from South Africa or from wherever they may come, and that is they may not necessarily stay. You cannot require people to stay the rest of their lives in a particular community or indeed in the province of Manitoba. Probably the best you can do is about two years. Unfortunately, the experience has been, over the years, that many such doctors do not stay in those communities. They come, they stay there a year or two and they go. I know of some specific examples in one town at least where that was the case, one town in western Manitoba. A very good doctor came but left after a year or two.
This is a problem that has been identified by other doctors in Manitoba. In fact, I noticed that the director of the Brandon Regional Health Authority has stated also that his best supply of doctors are those who come who are indigenous to Manitoba, they are from Manitoba or from Canada. Those are the ones who are likely to stay and not simply come for a year or two and then take off. This is a legitimate concern out there. So I do not think the minister's enthusiastic announcement of bringing in doctors from South Africa is essentially the solution to a lack of adequate medical services.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, the people who signed, the over 2,000 people who signed this--I would say, if we had an organized campaign, this could be double. It could be 4,000 or it could be 5,000 or it could be 6,000, but 2,000, surely, of people, real people out there who are really concerned should get the minister to be a little more serious, a lot more serious about this whole matter of physician supply.
So I suggest look at the old plan, but perhaps a better plan can be provided, a new plan can be provided, but not only do we want a plan, Mr. Deputy Speaker, we want action. It is easy for us to sit here and talk in generalities, but if you talk to the individuals who have been denied medical services because there is not a doctor available, who are afraid how they are going to manage--in fact, I know of one person who is leaving Brandon for that very reason, because of the inadequacy of a supply of doctors. So there is a very serious situation. Unfortunately, I cannot give this today to the Minister of Health (Mr. Praznik) as I would have, but I am going to ensure that he does get it in the near future, plus any other additional petitions that come in.
I know my time is nearing the end, very close to the end, so I just want to conclude by publicly thanking in this Legislature all the people who took the time to read the petition and to sign it and to forward it to us, to help convince the Minister of Health, to help convince the doctor, that this is a serious problem, that we need action and we need action now. Thank you.