Province launches review into all health authorities; PHSA, Fraser Health chairs retire

All health authorities in B.C. will undergo reviews, the Ministry of Health says, as it looks to “ensure support for front-line services.”

The news of the province-wide review comes as the ministry also announces that the chairs of the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) and Fraser Health are retiring Monday.

“The Province is launching its health authority review to ensure resource allocations are supporting critical patient services and minimize unnecessary administrative spending,” the Ministry of Health said in a release.

“The Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) has been selected as the first health authority to undergo review due to its provincewide role providing services and an array of additional shared services, such as information technology and lab services, across the health system,” it added.

PHSA is responsible for provincial services such as BC Cancer, BC Children’s Hospital, BC Women’s Hospital, BC Emergency Health Services, and others.

“Government is committed to ensuring health authorities are functioning as effectively and efficiently as possible, and that programs and governance make sense when tackling the complex challenges facing health care today,” said Josie Osborne, minister of health. “That’s why we’re reviewing each health authority to confirm patients, their families and health-care providers are benefiting from the most possible and the best use of resources directed to front-line patient care.”

Premier David Eby says he made a commitment during last year’s provincial election campaign to preserve the services British Columbians rely on.

“What we’re going to go after are those administrative costs in delivering that health care. And when we look to the health authorities, we expect them to be lean. We expect them to be operating in a way that delivers and focuses resources on those frontline services,” Eby said, speaking to media Monday.

The premier says he’s also concerned that the current health-care system isn’t placing as much weight on the voices of front-line workers as it should.

“The anxiety that I have is that the people who see the day-to-day of our health-care system, they have suggestions about how to make it better that they haven’t been able to bring that forward. So we’re going to try to eliminate as much of the layer between government and the frontline health workers as we can,” said Eby.

BC Nurses’ Union Vice President Tristan Newby thinks the review will ensure that resources are allocated appropriately across the province.

Newby says B.C. needs investment in recruitment and retention strategies across the province for all nurses.

“We hope that we would see increased efficiency of publicly funded health care as well as an increased investment in the implementation of minimum nurse-patient ratios,” said Newby.

He says those improvements will help the publicly-funded health-care system stay out of the hands of private agencies.

“I’m confident that this report will bring forward a number of areas to improve efficiencies across health care,” said Newby.

The news comes amid some staffing changes in some B.C. health authorities.

Dr. Penny Ballem will be stepping away from her role as board chair at Vancouver Coastal Health to head up PHSA.

Jim Sinclair is retiring from his position as board chair at Fraser Health, three weeks since the BC Conservatives called for him to be fired over long ER waits, and closures at the Delta Hospital emergency room.

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—With files from Raynaldo Suarez.