NCGC

To the Honourable Jenna Sudds, Minister or Families, Children and Social Development,

I have lived and worked in Whitehorse, Yukon for the past 5 years and have seen first hand how the current health and medical systems fail our residents. Please consider this letter regarding Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being. Front-line workers see the problems and gaps in service but action is stalled in upper levels of the department. Yukoners deserve oversight to avoid complacency and transparent timelines.

In terms of medical health care, we do not have enough doctors and close to no specialists full-time. Locum specialists in Physiatry and Internal Medicine are flown up several times a year, while 8-12 month waits are the norm. This creates a lack of continuity in care and a huge expense. The response to make care accessible here is reactive, not responsive or proactive to address the needs of patients. The fact is, many medical professionals from all over the world move to Canada but are forced to jump through many hurdles in order to have their education recognized. They end up working in low-level jobs just to be employed where their skills are wasted and our medical system continues to be stressed. There has to be a better way to ensure professionals are adequately trained and get them into health care positions faster to meet the needs of our growing population.

Stories of unmet needs for medical care are plentiful. A 70-year-old man should not be denied chemo therapy to treat his cancer because he is unhoused. Gender non-conforming individuals should not have to pay for out of territory assessors because their needs are unmet by the only assessor in the territory. While our proximity to Vancouver is convenient, it is not realistic for some people to travel out of the territory for medical procedures or testing that could be done in Whitehorse with adequate medical professionals and resources.

Socioeconomic and housing status should not determine eligibility to programs such as the housing subsidy or the Yukon dental program. Some people simply do not have the means to access required documentation and thus they slip through the cracks. The availability of programs does not guarantee that those with the greatest need have reasonable access.

Sincerely,

Anna Schunda
A concerned resident of the Yukon