Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen will meet with his provincial and federal counterparts in Edmonton later this week, their first face-to-face meeting since just before last Christmas when talks collapsed on a national health funding plan. All provinces have since signed individual deals with Ottawa. Goertzen says the ministers will discuss a couple of issues related to that turn of events.

Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen"There are two aspects to that. We'll have discussions about the sustainability of health care and how do we get the federal government to be a better partner in health care. Right now in Manitoba, the federal government contributes about 19 per cent of the cost of health care in Manitoba and that's declining each and every year. That makes sustainability of the health care system extremely difficult when a traditional 50-50 partner is down to 19 per cent. We will also continue to have discussions around the bilateral agreements, the funding for mental health and home care, because, while there was an agreement in terms of moving forward on it, there still is the work on the actual writing of how the money will proceed to the provinces and what the expectations are of that."

Goertzen notes one of the days will involve only the provincial health ministers where there will be discussions about the opioid crisis, coverage of prescription drugs, specifically high-cost drugs for rare diseases and trying to come up with a national group buying system for expensive medical equipment.

"Manitoba is going to take the lead, so I'll take the lead as Manitoba Health Minister, on trying to coordinate the purchasing of medical equipment. There's a lot of high-priced medical equipment, whether it's MRI's or that kind of diagnostic equipment, that we purchase as individual provinces. We've asked to lead the discussion on how can we make those purchases nationally. Why can't we do that together and get a better price for the benefit of all of us?"

And, based on the many calls he is getting from his counterparts across the country, Goertzen expects to get plenty of questions about Manitoba's current health reforms.

"I'm certainly getting lots of calls and comments from health ministers across Canada, asking about the different things that we're doing and answering some questions about how that's working. So I imagine Manitoba will be seen as a leader, in terms of health reform, at this meeting and that hasn't happened for a really long time."

The meeting takes place Thursday and Friday.