B.C. premier meets with doctors to talk staffing, strain on health care

B.C.’s premier says he’s heard from doctors in his province and that his government will be working on solutions to address challenges in local health-care systems and when it comes to staffing.

In a statement Tuesday, John Horgan says he and Health Minister Adrian Dix met with Doctors of BC representatives to hear their concerns about the current situation.

“Our government and Doctors of BC fully agree that British Columbians should be attached to primary care and have predictable access to their physicians. It is through continued dialogue and co-operation with physicians that we will be able to provide solutions to provide transformational change to B.C. by building on our historic efforts. We can only make progress when we work together,” Horgan said in the statement.

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Many in B.C.’s primary care sector have sounded the alarm over what they call a growing shortage of family doctors. The issue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which put a lot of stress on frontline workers. There has also been a major exodus of retirement-age physicians in recent years.

Horgan acknowledges the doctor shortage, which has led to long waits for visits across the province, is “a real problem,” noting many British Columbians are often “left waiting hours for medical attention that, for many, could have been addressed with a visit to a family doctor.”

While the premier says the problem is not isolated to B.C., he notes it is “very acute” in the province.

One policy researcher previously told CityNews the cracks in the system were becoming more apparent after a number of doctors left their practices, saying the pressure the pandemic put on these people was too much to bear in some cases.

“What’s different right now is that exhaustion … Family doctors have been saying for years, ‘We need a different system, we can’t keep working like this,’” Dr. Rita McCracken, who is also a family physician, explained.

She has conducted several studies with partners, speaking with doctors about what changes are needed in order for them to want to continue working in family medicine.

Among the challenges listed was the pay structure, with McCracken saying those in her industry are “only paid in the fee-for-service system for the time that you spend literally in front of patients.”

While Horgan has not said what exactly the solution is, he notes privatization is not on the table.

The premier is pressing the federal government to address a lack of funding across Canada.

Immediate solutions

Earlier this month, the leader of the B.C. Green Party took aim at the NDP government, saying it wasn’t doing enough to address to issue. Sonia Furstenau called for immediate solutions, saying the backbone of the health care system was on the brink of collapse.

“Primary care … is the back bone of a functioning health system and that back bone isn’t really working in B.C.,” said Furstenau. “For nearly a million people … it really is the most critical issue they’re facing right now.”

Challenges with finding a family doctor extend beyond just that. Wait times at hospitals have also crept up in recent months, with some in the Metro Vancouver area exceeding seven hours at times.

“I think much of the answer to this is the primary care crisis, where our patients in British Columbia, upwards of 900,000 of our patients don’t have access to a family doctor,” Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, president of Doctors of BC, told CityNews earlier this month, noting wait times are tied to the lack of patients with family physicians.

“We know that patients with family doctors have better health-care outcomes, and they have earlier detection, prevention, diagnosis and we are seeing with some of our patients who are having misdiagnosis, inaccurate diagnosis or untimely diagnosis.”

-With files from Claire Fenton, Andrew Cowie, and Kareem Gouda