FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 9, 2025
PC government’s actions risk driving doctors out of PEI
Charlottetown, PE – Green Party Leader Matt MacFarlane is raising serious concerns about the PC government’s continued mismanagement of healthcare and its deteriorating relationship with Island doctors. In light of recent warnings from the Medical Society of PEI (MSPEI), MacFarlane is calling on the Premier and Minister of Health to stop placing blame on family physicians and start listening to the frontline professionals trying to hold the system together.
“I have been contacted by family doctors who tell me a unilateral rollout of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from Health PEI without proper consultation with doctors is both disrespectful and damaging,” said MacFarlane. “This kind of top-down decision-making from Health PEI and the Minister of Health is the opposite of what’s needed right now. Our doctors are telling us they feel unheard and blamed, to the point of taking unprecedented legal action. That should set off alarm bells.”
The controversial KPI framework outlined in a recently released guide from Health PEI will increase administrative burdens, discourage thorough patient care, and worsen burnout among physicians already stretched thin. The new framework requires every family doctor to not only increase the patient panel size, but also holds them to a minimum of 24 visits per day including three same day visits. Physicians may be penalized for events outside of their control, including if too many of their patients seek treatment at an emergency room, are readmitted to hospital or do not keep up to date on their cancer screening.
“These new mandates are directly linked to reportable numbers that the Minister is responsible for improving through system changes that improve overall patient care. Downloading that responsibility onto doctors who have no power to change the system is inappropriate and will not improve healthcare for Islanders.”
While doctors are being held to rigid accountability standards, the Minister of Health has faced none, despite promising to eliminate the Island’s patient registry by this past spring. “If we held the Minister to the same performance metrics that he’s demanding from physicians, he’d be failing and would be facing serious consequences,” said MacFarlane.
MacFarlane is calling on the Premier and Minister of Health to come forward, take responsibility for this crisis, and work with, not against, those delivering care on the ground.
“Our healthcare system cannot be fixed by ignoring frontline voices as this government has done for years,” said MacFarlane. “Real solutions will only come from honest collaboration, not blame and bureaucracy.”
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For media inquiries, please contact:
Katie Rankin
Chief of Staff
Office of the Third Party
Tel: (902) 213-6378
Email: kerankin@assembly.pe.ca