New health deal includes $48M for P.E.I. next year

New health care funding, announced at a meeting between Canada's premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday, will cover about half of P.E.I.'s expected health care spending growth next year, says Premier Dennis King.

At a news conference following the meeting, King said the province will spend about $1 billion on health care in the next fiscal year, about 12 per cent more than this year. The additional $48 million coming to P.E.I. amounts to about half of that.

"It's certainly not insignificant," said King.

Many premiers expressed disappointment with the 10-year, $46-billion upgrade, but King said Canada needs to move on from the discussion of money in health care.

"What's lost in the conversation, that we need to continue to focus on, is that it isn't just money we need. We need innovations. We need to change how we deliver health care," he said.

"We've led, maybe, Canadians to believe that money is going to fix this. That is not totally accurate."

King has addressed the issue in this manner before, pointing to P.E.I.'s medical homes, which bring a number of health-care professionals under one roof to work collaboratively, as the kind of innovation that's required.

Money will be needed to affect those changes, he said, but it's not just about money. The sooner Canadians can start talking about the necessary changes to the system the better, said King.

Now the work to sign bilateral deal with each province begins. P.E.I. will be at the front of the line. Trudeau has scheduled a meeting with Premier King late for Wednesday afternoon in Ottawa.