With health care dominating the question period in the Yukon legislature early this week, Yukon Party health critic Brad Cathers is demanding the territorial government strike a task force to reduce “red tape” on physicians that the health minister insists would be redundant.
Health and Social Services Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee told reporters in the cabinet office on March 18 there’s already a dedicated forum to talk about that: the physician payment advisory committee.
“That's been tasked with looking at reducing red tape and administrative burdens and determining ways forward that are less complicated or less burdensome for our physicians,” McPhee said.
That’s in addition to regular interactions with the Yukon Medical Association, per McPhee.
The Yukon Party got the idea from the former Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, which struck a task force in 2023, and Nova Scotia. Cathers didn’t know the impact of those jurisdictions’ initiatives on getting people more access to doctors.
Manitoba had a plan to get and keep health-care workers as of 2022, similar to the concept of the Yukon’s health human resources strategy, which Cathers claims his party pushed the Liberals for.
The Yukon government and the Yukon Medical Association will soon start negotiating a new memorandum of understanding, with the old one extended beyond March 31, 2025, until a new deal is negotiated and ratified. The new agreement will cover "fair and sustainable compensation," according to a Yukon government press release.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com
