PC Leader brings focus on health care, affordability to CBS campaign

By Craig Westcott

You won’t get the hard sell from Tony Wakeham. The PC Leader, who was campaigning in Conception Bay South June 7 with MHA Barry Petten, seems content to focus on bread-and-butter issues that he says will put more money back in people’s pockets.
“For all intents and purposes the election is called, we just don’t know the start date,” said Wakeham.
The Memorial University-educated economist and former head of Labrador – Grenfell Health Services said wherever he travels, people are raising several common issues, especially health care.
“It comes up in discussion all the time,” said the Placentia native and married father of two. “The cost of living is a major concern for people. And crime. Safer communities – that’s becoming a real issue. In the past we lived in communities where we watched crime on TV and we’d go down the road to see our doctor. Now, we have crime in our communities, and we’ve got to see a doctor on TV. There’s something that’s mixed up in this system of ours that we’ve created over the last number of years and we’ve got to turn that around.”
Access to primary health care is a big concern for many, Wakeham said. And in those places that don’t have a family doctor, he thinks it’s wrong that people have to pay to see a nurse practitioner.
“Nurse practitioners have stepped up and opened up these clinics, and I go to see a nurse practitioner,” said Wakeham. “They’re providing a great service to people, but for a lot of people, having to pay anywhere from $35 to $65 a visit, that shouldn’t be. It’s about, how do we work with the nurse practitioners to maximize their skill set to enable them to set up clinics, if they want, and for people to be able to go there? That’s something that’s a priority for us. We’ve said that nobody should have to pay to see a nurse practitioner and we intend to make sure that we do something about that as soon as we form government.”
Wakeham also wants to reimburse people who have to travel to St. John’s for health services at the Health Sciences or St. Clare’s Hospital.
“I’ve seen throughout my travels a gradual erosion of service,” said Wakeham. “It’s not like the Liberals are closing anything, but they’re taking it out slowly by slowly.”
That erosion of health care throughout the province is driving more people to St. John’s for services, Wakeham argued, putting more pressure on St. Clare’s and the Health Sciences Centre.
“Maybe if we had a better system outside (the overpass), we’d be able to relieve some of that pressure,” Wakeham said. “It’s no secret that I believe that when people have to travel for medical appointments, they should be reimbursed a hundred per cent for their travel. I think that is part of what we should deliver as a province and a government. I know it can be done, and I intend to do it.”
As in any provincial election, voters oftentimes base their choice on who they like as leader, no matter who the local candidates are. So how does Wakeham see himself compared to the new Liberal Premier, John Hogan?
“I believe that what you see is what you get,” said Wakeham. “I believe in openness and transparency and that we need more of that. That’s what I stand for and that’s what I will continue to fight for. I will always ask myself the question, if I’m going to introduce a policy, ‘how will that policy impact people?’ When we make decisions, if we stop and ask ourselves that question before we go and do something, maybe we won’t wind up with things like the sugar tax and having to turn it around three years later and get rid of it. I believe in planning… I think what you’ve seen the last number of years is a lack of planning that has resulted in additional costs for things. We now have a hotel in St. John’s that we’re leasing for three years because we didn’t have a plan to deal with affordable housing or homelessness. We have a similar situation now in Corner Brook going on where another hotel has been rented. None of these were tendered or RFPed or anything like that. They just rushed to do something. It was reactionary. And when you’re reacting instead of planning, you’re going to spend more, and it’s going to cost you more and you don’t always get the best results.”
Wakeham said he also wants to help people deal with the cost of living.
“I think there are things we could be doing differently,” he said. “For example, we tried to get the Liberal government to commit to a 20 per cent increase in the senior’s benefit. They refused to do that. We did convince them to turn around and index it to inflation. There are a lot of programs that we (the government) offer, but we’ve never looked at them from a point of view of, how do they help people? Because that’s ultimately what it is. It’s not necessarily about spending more money, it’s about making different choices.”