Prince Edward Island’s well being authority provided a stark evaluation of the state of the province’s health-care system throughout a well being committee between senior well being officers on Friday.

What was ostensibly to be a report on medical properties, a brand new sort of health-care supply targeted on blended groups working with a physician moderately than on referral, shortly grew to become an prolonged Q&A session on the challenges dealing with health-care supply on the island.

“Probably 95 per cent of the problems that you hear about Health PEI relate to staffing. It’s really that simple,” mentioned Dr. Michael Gardam, the CEO of Health PEI. “Staffing causes burnout, when you don’t have enough staff, people are doing too many overtime shifts, and all of this is perpetuated because we can’t hire enough people.”

Gardam mentioned there are a whole lot of health-care positions that must be stuffed, together with greater than 20 household medical doctors and 10 emergency division medical doctors.

He mentioned it is the identical story throughout the nation.

“Wherever anybody challenged Canadian health care, somebody would stand up and say, ‘We have best health-care system in the world.’ We don’t. We have one of the worst performing health-care systems of any developed country, anywhere,” mentioned Gardam.

He mentioned, by nearly any metric, Canadian well being care ranks close to the underside.

Gardam mentioned it’ll value round one other $100 million a yr to begin turning well being care round for Islanders. That’s a price range improve of about 13 per cent.

The well being authority can also be calling for larger flexibility to rent when health-care professionals can be found, not restricted to gradual budgetary requests.

“So, if you’ve got somebody who’s waiting to be hired, or ready to be hired, we want to hire them,” mentioned Corinne Rowswell, Health PEI chief operations officer. “Even if there isn’t a permanent position.”

Altogether, they’re calling for a elementary change in how well being care is delivered on P.E.I.

“The model of care for primary care hasn’t changed ever, as far as I know,” mentioned Dr. Kathie McNally, Health PEI chief medical officer. “It’s been the same model of care for the last hundred years.”

During the committee on Friday, well being officers mentioned that well being care on P.E.I., and throughout the nation, is outdated and damaged. They added that if one thing would not change quickly, it is doable locations will lose much more of the important health-care employees that preserve the system going.