Almost $86 million is headed the Yukon’s way to invigorate health care access and services across the Yukon.

On Tuesday morning, three agreements reflecting that amount of money were announced in Whitehorse by federal Health Minister Mark Holland and Tracy-Anne McPhee, the territorial minister of Health and Social Services.

It’s the ninth such umbrella agreement Ottawa has signed with the provinces and territories.

Through the Working Together Agreement, the federal government will provide more than $23.8 million to support the Yukon’s three-year action plan to deliver improvements to the care system by 2026.

The intents include:

• Improving access to family health services.

• Creating a walk-in primary care clinic in Whitehorse, which is expected to help at least 1,500 additional patients annually. (The two ministers’ news conference took place in that semi-completed, ground-floor clinic at Mah’s Point, on Second Avenue at Jarvis Street.)

• Expanding the delivery of mental health and addiction services and specialized care.

• Introducing the Icelandic Prevention Model, which aims to circumvent youth substance use through community-driven initiatives.

• Supporting the rural communities to develop their own tailored community wellness plans.

• Broadening access to opioid treatment services, including safer supply, through a new Mobile Opioid Treatment Services Clinic. It will provide treatment options and basic medical care.

  • Developing land-based mental health and substance use treatment projects, working with the Council of Yukon First Nations.

• Creating the Yukon’s first residential managed alcohol withdrawal program in Whitehorse with a capacity of 10 beds by 2025-2026.

• Ensuring the capital’s Supervised Consumption Site is available 365 days per year, through more staffing.

Meanwhile, through the Aging with Dignity Agreement, Ottawa will provide close to $12 million to support the five-year action plan to help Yukoners age with dignity close to home – with access to home care or care in a safe long-term care facility.

This agreement sets out to:

• Continue to provide support for the Yukon’s Home First and Complex Client Supports programs.

Those provide community-based services enabling Yukoners to stay in their homes, return home from hospital and support the continuity of care.

• Expand rural community home care to the entire territory, and improving it by promoting aging in place through in-home respite, rural end-of-life care.

“We have to ensure seniors have a healthy, dignified retirement in their home community,” Holland told reporters.

This funding will also provide access to new satellite phones for communication and access to health records in areas without cell service, ensuring safety and scheduling support for home workers.

• Hire personal support workers and nursing staff for nursing homes.

• Support workforce stability by providing money for more home attendants to help meet the objective of 3.5 hours of direct care per resident each day.

• Improve the quality of long-term care in the territory.

Progress on these initiatives and broader commitments will be measured against targets which the Yukon will publicly report on annually.

Another goal is streamlining foreign credential recognition for internationally educated health professionals and helping key health professionals more easily move around Canada.

Hastening the accreditation process can bolster recruitment effectiveness, Holland, an Ontario MP, told the news conference.

“It can streamline ways to get people into the profession,” he said.

Some of the prevailing administrative requirements comprise “an illogical process,” the minister added, questioning the wisdom of “doing something that is illogical.”

While the Yukon does not require “thousands and thousands of people” to provide health care, it does need to furnish relief to exhausted practitioners requiring a vacation, for instance, McPhee said.

Community nursing vacancies have dropped from 47 per cent of positions to 17 per cent at last count, she added.

All levels of government will approach health decisions in their respective jurisdictions through a lens that promotes respect and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

The final agreement under the umbrella $86-million blueprint will see the Yukon granted more money through the renewal of the Territorial Health Investment Fund (THIF). A new grant agreement will provide $50 million over five years. This will help fund the creation of a new health authority (see story, p. 5).

As part of the Yukon’s Health Human Resource Strategy, a rural family medicine residency program will be developed.

As well, digital health services will be strengthened.

“Canadians want better access to health services, and securing these three agreements with the Yukon is a significant step in transforming the health care system, especially in supporting those who want to age at home,” Holland said in a statement.

“We are working with all provinces and territories to achieve better health outcomes for everyone, including Indigenous peoples.”

He added at Tuesday’s news conference, “We are on a very positive trajectory with these agreements.”

McPhee agreed.

“We have the same vision for what can happen in Canada and in the Yukon,” she said.

“We spent a lot of time making sure the details are right. We are all about more options at the moment. These agreements will facilitate the expansion of primary care.”

Her government has taken on “the extraordinary responsibility” of dedicating $594 million to health care in the new territorial budget tabled last Thursday, she added.

As for the problem of rural clinic closures due to staffing issues, she said, “I would like to believe that money fixes everything, but it does not.”

The goal, she said, is “to make the Yukon the absolute best place in the world to practise the health care professions.

Holland called McPhee “an exceptional partner” in finalizing the agreements. “The challenges before us are large,” he told media.

Practitioners carried “a completely unfair load” during the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.

“It was too much to ask of anybody.”

The 2023 federal budget outlined the intent of investing close to $200 billion over 10 years, including $46.2 billion in new funding for provinces and territories, to improve Canadians’ health care.