Canada's public safety minister visited Sarnia's Bluewater Health Tuesday morning to promote healthcare investments in the 2023 budget.
Marco Mendicino said the budget lays out approximately $198-billion that will go into healthcare over the next 10 years.
He said it's going to provide tangible, concrete benefits to Bluewater Health in many ways, including the recruitment and retention of new healthcare workers to the front lines.
"It was a very difficult two years coming out of the pandemic, with high rates of attrition and burnout," said Mendicino. "There are investments in the budget that will help to attract and retain new talent from both the schools here at home as well as abroad."
Mendicino said the budget will also help in creating more safe and inclusive spaces for mental health supports, and by digitizing the sharing of healthcare information.
"Making sure that we can serve people who walk in by acquiring their health information and then sharing it with their doctor, with their nurse, with their personal support worker in real time."
Mendicino said the budget will deliver stronger healthcare and reduce wait times. He also recognized Bluewater Health's tireless efforts for keeping surgical wait times down during the pandemic.
"That kind of resilience is why it's so important that we, in turn, support them," he said.
Hospital President and CEO Paula Reaume-Zimmer discussed how they were able to keep their surgical wait times down over the past few years.
"On a daily basis, the leaders meet at 8 a.m., and they talk about the pressures of the emerge, how can they move patients around, make sure there's flow, and then if there's capacity, then they're able to maintain our surgical schedule."
Reaume-Zimmer also said there are several things in the 2023 budget that would help Sarnia-Lambton.
"We're expecting some increase to our base funding, but there's a really strong investment on health human recourses," she said. "We know that in order to recruit and retain skilled healthcare professionals and ally healthcare and any of our team throughout the hospital, we need to be innovative."
Reaume-Zimmer also applauded mental health supports, which she said are a priority for both federal and provincial health ministries.
"We are planning to be opening our youth mental health Ontario site in the near future, which is an excellent site where youth can just walk in," she said. "No referrals and navigating, searching for care, walk in and ask for help, and we have to make it as barrier free as possible."
