On Thursday November 5, I spoke in the Legislative Assembly on a Grievance. The speech was focused on my very strong support for the hundreds of medical doctors and PhD scientists and researchers who have come forward to raise their high level of concern for the extent of the current COVID-19 pandemic in Manitoba.
Hon. Jon Gerrard (River
Heights): Madam Speaker, I
rise today on a grievance.
I speak today to
say in the strongest possible terms that I support the hundreds of doctors and
other health professionals who have signed a letter to the Premier (Mr.
Pallister) calling for much more substantial measures to address the COVID-19
pandemic in Manitoba.
The Minister of
Health was wrong to say the doctors are trying to cause chaos. The doctors say
very clearly that we in Manitoba are in grave peril. These words by the doctors
and their colleagues were not chosen lightly.
We have an extreme
emergency. The words of the doctors and other health professionals were not
part of a political attack. There are, I am sure, among the many hundreds who
have signed the letter, those of all political persuasions. They speak not from
a political perspective, but from the perspective of health professionals who
care deeply about the health and well-being of Manitobans. In fact, they have
dedicated their lives to it.
The government
says it has lots of capacity, but as the doctors point out, we may be short of
ICU specialists and others. Not all doctors have the needed expertise to work
in ICUs. Even physicians who are specialists in internal medicine may not be
immediately able to switch into working in ICUs. There are limits in terms of
personnel who have the expertise to safely expand our ICU capacity and the
personnel that are needed for that expansion.
There is also a
concern that a number of people who work in our ICUs may get infected, and we
have already seen one–Dr. Mooney–and we have seen his case; and the question is
if there are others, it is a concern that–whether we will have the extra
capacity in staffing if a number of critical people like Dr. Mooney become
infected.
In personal-care
homes we have already seen the drastic shortages in staff because staff have
become infected or need to quarantine. As hundreds of doctors have pointed out,
there needs to be an expansion of the public health measures to reduce virus
trans-mission. We must have a much larger and more effective lockdown. The
Southern Health authority, the Northern Health authority and the
Interlake-Eastman authority all have rates of new cases per 100,000 people
which are similarly high as the numbers are also high in Winnipeg.
In Winnipeg the seven-day
average for the last seven days is 27 per 100,000. In the Southern Health it is
23 per 100,000. In Interlake-Eastman it is 24 per 100,000. In the
Northern Health authority it is 30 per 100,000. Only in the Prairie Mountain
Health area is it down at 5.5. And so Prairie Mountain could be an exception,
but the rest of the province needs to be in code red.
What happens in
the North affects people in Winnipeg because we may be needing to provide the
ICU capacity in Winnipeg for people in the North. Indeed, as we saw in an
earlier pandemic when we had many cases in northern First Nations, it strained
the ICU capacity in Winnipeg.
We need stronger
measures to reduce the potential for transmission all over the province and we
need to act particularly in areas where people gather or where there's a high
risk of transmission. Just as the doctors have said, there needs to be a bigger
lockdown, a bigger shutdown –a major effort to decrease the
transmission.
At the same time,
it's critical that there be support to Manitoba businesses who are struggling
and to help individuals who are in great difficulty.
We must commit to and
have the capacity to do testing without long waits for COVID-19. We must have
the capacity to analyze and report the test results within 24 hours and we must
have the capacity to complete the contact tracing within 24 hours and assemble
and report results rapidly so this information is quickly available. Anything
less than this is not good enough because by day four people can be infectious
and pass the virus on to others. Only when testing and contract tracing can be
done reliably and rapidly can these be used effectively to control the
pandemic. As the doctors say, and I, too, hear, there are far too many stories
of this process taking far too long.
The doctors speak
of more consultation being needed with vulnerable communities. First Nations
need to be involved in decision making. They are critically involved in the
North and as we see with the outbreak at the Keeyask dam right at the moment.
We need to have detailed
plans to ensure that individuals who are homeless, individuals who are
immuno-compromised are adequately protected.
In personal-care
homes we have had horrific outbreaks at two personal-care homes: Parkview and
the Maples. There have been problems at these homes dating back many years. The
government and the government before have under staffed these homes and put
people at risk. We need not only to boost the staffing levels to boost the number
of people working in homes and providing care, but we also need regular
testing. In other jurisdictions where there are high rates, all homes are being
tested–all staff, all residents–up to twice a week. We need to be doing
something much more vigorous, particularly in personal-care homes where there
are already cases, or when there is a first case in a personal-care home. We
must recognize that there are times when people will be infectious but
asymptomatic and the people in the personal-care home are too at risk to take
the risk that they are not picked up.
We need more
accountability and transparency in Estimates and in question period. The
Minister of Health has worked hard to avoid giving many answers. The government
needs to be much more fully sharing details: details of the structure of the
incident command centre, making sure that Indigenous groups and physicians are
involved. I looked today at the Ottawa city reporting; it is much more detailed than
we are giving. We could be doing much more and much better in reporting to all
Manitobans.
It is a tragic
part of the COVID-19 pandemic that far too many cases are to be found in
government funded or operated institutions: personal-care homes, hospitals,
correctional institutions. The government needs to stop blaming others and
ensure that the government is doing all it can, and in particular that the
recommendations of hundreds of doctors and health professionals are followed.
There will
certainly in due course be inquests and a public inquiry into the government's conduct of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We in the the
Liberal Party have called for the resignation of the Minister of Health. Sadly,
he has lost the confidence of many in Manitoba; the minister was not prepared
for the second wave of the pandemic.
My advice to the
minister is this: if the minister wants to save his job as Minister of Health,
he needs to apologize to the doctors he's attacked and he needs to implement
immediately the changes the doctors recommend if we are to decrease the number
of new COVID-19 cases and to reduce the likelihood of exceeding the pandemic
capability in our ICUs, the capacity we have in health care.
I say this to the
Minister of Health, who I have worked with in this Legislature for some
time, and I think it's time that he listened and acted, and I ask you to do
this, Mr. Minister.
Thank you. Merci.
Miigwech.
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