Health P.E.I. looking for more off-Island deals to guarantee patients' access to specialists

Health P.E.I. is working toward formalizing agreements with neighbouring provinces to guarantee specialized health services the Island is unable to provide on its own.

CEO Dr. Michael Gardam told MLAs at a standing committee Tuesday that P.E.I. has historically relied on other provinces — or what he called the "kindness of strangers" — to provide all the health services Islanders need.

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But since the COVID-19 pandemic, resources in those other provinces have been stretched, and they need to look after their own patients first. That's particularly the case in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

"We are actively working daily to try to get guaranteed service for Islanders because if we can't provide it and we can't send somebody away for it, that's not acceptable," Gardam said.

"During the pandemic you can imagine services were cut in those provinces, right? And so they have longer wait lists. They're trying to get through their own backlogs."

P.E.I. does have formal agreements with the IWK Health Centre in Halifax for pediatric care, and the Saint John Regional Hospital in New Brunswick for cardiac help.

Getting access to other services, such vascular and neurosurgery and internal medicine subspecialties, is based on a longstanding "gentlemen's agreement," though P.E.I. does pay the jurisdiction involved for providing the service for Island patients.

Gardam would like to see those agreements formalized.

"We've survived like this for a very long time, but with the pandemic and with the complexity of medicine increasing, on top of the health human resources shortage, this is new territory for us and it's something that we're pulling out all the stops, working with government to try to see if we can get those agreements."

Other provinces have deals too

The situation is not unique to P.E.I.. Yukon, for example, relies on B.C. for some of its health-care services. Smaller hospitals in Ontario can send patients to Toronto or Ottawa if they can't provide a certain service themselves.

But P.E.I. is not able to host an entire health-care system, Gardam said.

"We've never been able to do that and in that respect we're similar to the Yukon. We can't have all the services, so we need to guarantee access for those services. Otherwise Islanders are going to have less complete health care than every other province and we can't allow that."