Opposition health care complaints have Yukon Liberals on the defensive

Yukon Health Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee spent much of Monday defending her party's health care record.

The opposition Yukon Party on Monday released documents that show officials at the Yukon Hospital Corporation are trimming medical imaging services at the Whitehorse General Hospital in response to rising costs and staff shortages. 

One document shows the hospital began limiting certain medical imaging services in early November. The affected services include CT scans, mammograms, MRIs, ultrasounds, X-rays and "special procedures."

The document also shows the hospital plans to cut back the number of mammograms even further, from 15 exams per day in November to 12 per day in December.

"As you should all be aware our cost containment measures started in November but recognizing patients were already booked in many modalities additional measures will be taken in some areas starting in December to get us to our final goal of offering services within our current budget," the document reads.

It was sent to medical imaging staff Nov. 3 from someone at the Yukon Hospital Corporation, but the name and job title are blacked out.

A second document, a Nov. 17 memo from medical directors Vic Venu and John Dufton and Caitlyn Carey, the manager of medical imaging, outlines rising wait times for lower priority CT scans. It says the wait time for priority 2 scans, normally one to three weeks, is currently 12 weeks. 

The memo goes on to urge health care staff to "use extreme discretion when ordering and prioritizing CT examinations" and to "consider an alternate imaging modality as appropriate."

Yukon Party health critic Brad Cathers said the problem is simply that the hospital corporation doesn't get enough money from the government.

"The government has the ability to solve the problem, but it does require significantly increasing the funding to the Yukon Hospital Corporation to meet with their actual budgetary needs are, not the minister's imagined version of what those budgetary needs are," he said.

Health Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee said the only documents she's seen about service reductions at the hospital are draft plans and that the department is trying to avoid service cuts.

"When we learned of that, we immediately started to talk to [the hospital corporation] about how maybe we wouldn't have to do that," she said.

Senior officials with the hospital corporation were slated to appear before the legislature's committee of the whole Tuesday.

McPhee said the government has increased core funding to the hospital corporation in recent years. And she said there's another $17.1 million for the corporation in a supplementary budget that has yet to be passed.

Meanwhile, NDP health critic Annie Blake said cuts to medical imaging in Whitehorse have implications for residents in the territory's smaller communities, who must travel to the capital for nearly all of those services.

"There are times when I've heard from Yukoners in communities who have said they're waiting for an appointment for a scan or for a CT scan or X-ray or mammography and [are] not sure how long that wait will take, so obviously that's an issue that's impacting Yukoners in terms of their access to health services," she said.

Blake said the situation is compounding slowdowns and temporary closures of rural health clinics. In Question Period Monday, she warned that staff shortages at rural clinics could have grave implications over the holidays.

"The holiday season is also a challenging time for many people who struggle with grief and loss, mental health and addiction issues, increasing stress, anxiety and depression," she said. "This is the season when it is critical that community health centres are operating and fully staffed."

McPhee said the shutdowns at rural clinics are the result of a global shortage of health care workers and that the government is doing the best it can to provide health care in the communities.

"Nobody wants service reductions anywhere," McPhee said. "Not in medical imaging, not in X-rays, not in surgical, not in health centres and communities."