Nova Scotia is moving toward a unified health-care system that will focus on patients, improve public accountability and ensure prompt collective bargaining.
When passed, the Health Authorities Act, introduced today, Sept. 29, will create a new provincial health authority April 1, 2015, which will work with the IWK Health Centre.
“This act is the foundation for a stronger health-care system, one that can reduce wait times and better meet the needs of patients in all regions of the province,” said Health and Wellness Minister Leo Glavine.
“It ensures that our health-care system can think and act as one, investing our savings in the front-line care that Nova Scotians need.”
By moving to two district health authorities instead of 10, government estimates the health-care system will save more than $5 million each year in senior leadership salaries and board expenses.
Under the act, the new health authority will have an annual plan and targets to improve the quality of health-care services.
Other benefits include:
— a stronger focus on public engagement through community health boards
— government setting a strategic, multi-year provincial health plan with targets for improvement
— streamlined business planning processes, allowing faster approvals of health authority budgets
— more collaboration around business planning between IWK and the provincial health authority
The act also simplifies the labour landscape in health care. The labour changes will improve mobility for health-care workers, and reduce the number of rounds of bargaining from 50 to four.
It keeps all existing health-care unions in the province, but ensures that workers who do the same types of jobs will be represented by the same union.
Under the act, the provincial health authority and the IWK will bargain together with unions. A mediator will work with unions and employers to determine which union will represent each of the four bargaining units, and other issues such as respecting seniority.
Wages, pensions and health benefits will not be impacted.
“Right now, the health-care system spends between 1,000 and 2,000 hours each year on labour negotiations. We need our system to spend that time focusing on patients,” said Mr. Glavine.
“We need a labour structure that supports our provincial approach. Mediation will ensure that unions, and their members, continue to have a voice in what that structure looks like.”
Source: Release
