As hospitals strain under the burden of record-high numbers of COVID-19 patients, two former health ministers warn that there is no silver bullet that can reform the health-care system and safeguard it for the long run.
“People always want to have a quick single solution to a complex problem,” former federal health minister Jane Philpott said in a panel interview on CBC’s The House, which aired Saturday. “There is not a single thing that will fix the whole picture.”
“Spending more money to do a lot of things the same way that we’ve always done them” will not fix structural issues with resource allocation and the workforce, added Fred Horne, a former Alberta health minister.
The stresses of COVID-19 hospitalizations, driven by the current wave of infections, are being felt acutely across the country, including in Quebec.
19:29How can this country fix a health care system under pressure?
A Montreal ER nurse shares some of the stress on the hospital frontlines, and former health ministers Jane Philpott and Fred Horne talk about how to reform Canada’s health care system. 19:29
In Montreal, ER nurse Marie-Pier says she worries that cratering morale could lead to a collapse in the hospital system. CBC News is using only her first name because she fears disciplinary action for speaking out.
“My biggest concern is that I am mostly scared that we’re just going to crumble and literally have nurses stop working, people stop working period, or completely change profession because it’s too much,” she told host Chris Hall.
She said health-care workers are exhausted, and while many try to keep working and push through, sometimes they simply burn out because of stress and fatigue after several waves of the pandemic.
“Out of nowhere, we just fall.”
Marie-Pier said steps such as increasing pay, reducing forced overtime and creating better overall conditions would help to bring workers back into the health-care system.
“It’s a beautiful job. I love to care for people just to help people to feel better and to be able to see them rise and leave the hospital after,” she said.
Hospitals under stress across country
Similar workforce and resource strains are being felt across the country, prompting questions once more on how the health-care system, which experts say can be overwhelmed during a normal flu season, can be reinforced and reformed for the long term.
“Most Canadians would agree that even before COVID-19, our capacity was often stretched too thin,” federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said earlier this month.
A key question in the debate over a potential solution is the role of the federal government. Over the past two years, provinces have consistently asked for Ottawa to boost its health-care transfer to provinces — up to 35 per cent of costs versus the current 22 per cent.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, and Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. Trudeau has said he is open to discussing federal health transfers once the pandemic ends. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said he is open to renegotiating the transfer system once the pandemic is over.
“I think that it’s a good time for the federal government to exert itself more strongly in the health space, and we do need more investments,” said Philpott, who served as federal health minister from 2015 to 2017.
But she cautioned that there is a need for other reform as well, because “you can’t keep throwing more money at doing things the same way we’ve always done.
“People know how much care is needed in hospitals, but we also need to spend in places like home care and mental health and primary care,” she added.
Former federal health minister Jane Philpott says greater federal involvement in health care is just one part of the long-term solution. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Changes to support the workforce, such as allowing easier movement of workers from province to province and more efficient assignments of physicians versus nurses or general practitioners, would also help, Philpott said.
“There are very few provinces that have a really good workforce plan, and there is no existence of a national health workforce plan. So that would be an area that I would put a lot of attention to if I were a federal minister.”
Horne, who served as provincial health minister in Alberta from 2011 to 2014, said transformational change of the type that’s needed “takes a lot longer than one political cycle or one budget cycle.”
Privatization debate a ‘red herring,’ Philpott says
Both former ministers expressed skepticism that the debate over private health care was a fruitful one.
“I think the whole issue of public-private [care] is highly misunderstood and can often be used as a red herring,” Philpott said. There is a great deal of private delivery already built into the system, she said, and the concern should be making sure privately paid systems don’t disrupt access to care for all.
Former Alberta health minister Fred Horne says it’s difficult for ministers to accomplish systemic reform in one electoral cycle. (CBC)
Horne said that during his time in office, private delivery of publicly insured services had not been a “huge issue” in his conversations.
“In fact, [people] were expecting us to make best use of the public funds — and that includes, you know, partnerships with the private sector and industry as appropriate,” he said.
Philpott said that “we’re actually starting to see some good things happening behind the scenes,” such as a national data health plan, but to push forward requires strong collaboration between levels of government.
Horne said his advice to health ministers now is to focus on accomplishing things that will survive their tenure as head of the system.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
