​New Government; New Hope: Now What?

It was 6 years ago that a newly elected premier and his colleagues called for reforms in the health sector, amongst many other things they had on their agenda.   For two decades prior to that, a number of serious health and long-term care issues had been accumulating:
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1. Wait times in Emergency Departments were becoming unmanageable with tales going back nearly 20 years to the distress caused for the public with long waits. 
2. The long waits for elective surgery (hips, knees and other orthopaedic procedures) were also a large concern for an aging population but not a new issue.
3. The growing number of residents without access to appropriate primary health service.
4. Governance and structure of the health authorities.
5. Health Human Resources issues ranging from impending vacancies by the carload to workplace morale, organization and structure.  Those themes have been frequently expressed for so long that I expect a certain numbness may have set in.
6. Wait times for access for long-term care growing at an alarming level that compromises the service that the acute care hospitals are supposed to provide.
   
   

The aging population has contributed to increasingly long waits for long-term care resulting in an embarrassing number of acute care beds being occupied by persons requiring long-term care capacity, which most mistakenly interpreted simply as need for more nursing homes.  This shortage and pressure have been forecast for decades and has never been taken seriously.  A succession of governments have mistakenly thought they were doing something significant by building a few new nursing homes and renovating existing stock.  Those have been great initiatives but have not resolved the issues.

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