Regina – CUPE Saskatchewan President Tom Graham is urging the province’s health minister, Dustin Duncan, to support a new Health Accord at this week’s meeting of health ministers in Vancouver.
Graham wrote Minister Duncan on behalf of CUPE’s 30,000 members in Saskatchewan to inform the minister that CUPE is encouraged by the new federal government’s commitment to negotiate a new accord.
Says Graham, “Our hope is that strengthening and expanding our public Medicare system will be a priority for the ministers who are meeting this week, as part of a newly negotiated public Health Accord.”
CUPE is encouraging all ministers of health to support a new Health Accord that includes the following elements:
- Stable and adequate funding from the federal government, with annual increases established at a minimum 6%;
- A national continuing care program that extends the principles of the Canada Health Act to long term care, home and community care and establishes minimum staffing and phasing out of for-profit delivery in this sector;
- A national universal Pharmacare program that provides coverage to all Canadians through a national formulary, evidence-based evaluation of prescribing and protection from trade deals.
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