Premier Tim Houston has promised to release a detailed, multi-year plan to fix healthcare, before the end of March.
That comes after the final report from the Speak Up for Healthcare Tour was released Thursday.
Houston says the tour had a big impact.
“There’s no substitute for looking somebody in the eye,” he says. “Experiencing the emotion that they’re experiencing over these issues.”
Houston says fixing healthcare will take time, but they are committed to working as quickly as they’re able to.
He says two of the biggest areas of concern are mental healthcare and lack of family doctors.
Houston says they were already looking at those both of those, but the report confirmed what they suspected.
“It certainly stressed the urgency,” he says. “The need to get to work on these things.”
The report identified three main themes: lack of access to healthcare, need for better recruitment and retention of healthcare workers, and required upgrades to healthcare infrastructure.
Feedback included 2,391 online submissions, 254 listening sessions, five roundtable discussions, 67 video pitches, more than 200 comment cards, and more than 60 emails.
