Since my election as the MLA in May 2017, I have had many meetings in my office and hundreds more emails, from constituents who do not have a family doctor.
The lack of access to primary care is not just in Saanich North and the Islands but in ridings all across British Columbia. This long-standing issue was even the source of a promise for a GP for everyone by 2015. That never happened.
Growing crisis!
The problem has continued to grow and is now causing deep issues in health, wellness, increased stress and significant illnesses going untreated and simple conditions growing into substantial issues.
The BC NDP government has promised to transform the primary care service delivery and begin providing British Columbians with a healthcare practitioner when they need it.
I asked Hon. Adrian Dix, Minister of Health about when we were going to see some relief in this growing crisis.
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A. Olsen
The number of meetings in my office about health care is growing. The number of emails, overwhelming. As the minister knows, my community, like all of our communities, is struggling to deliver primary care.
This week, I met with Bruce. He shared his deep frustration with not having a doctor. I also met with Gary. He’s also retired on the Saanich Peninsula and is now without a doctor for the first time in his life.
To cap off this week, David stopped by to share a story about the health challenges of his 81-year-old wife, Jane. The minister may know Jane, as the former member for Saanich North and the Islands brought her story to question period.
David and Jane have lost their doctor twice in the last decade. At 82, he is now the full-time caregiver for his wife, Jane, who has Alzheimer’s, is partly deaf and has a disability. Familiar story, no?
No doctor and very little respite — it’s a good thing that David is strong. He’s a powerful advocate for the changes in health care services that are so urgently needed in our province.
To the Minister of Health, I know the minister is working to implement team-based care models across the province, but in the meantime, people are struggling to find care. Can the minister give us realistic timelines on when the patients are going to start feeling real solutions to the doctor shortage?
Hon. A. Dix:
I want to thank the member for his question. I think his question reflects the views of many members of the House from many communities around B.C.
The people that he’s mentioned — David, Jane and Bruce, in his constituency — and more than one in six British Columbians who are without a family doctor or nurse practitioner, a primary care provider, it’s for them, in May, that the Premier launched our primary care plan, which, because it’s a complex problem, involves several elements.
We are establishing urgent primary care centres in places around B.C., most recently in Quesnel, to help address issues of attachment in care, because we know, as well, that it’s not just people who are unattached, but many people suffer more significant health needs than before and require significant care — people with mental health and addictions, the frail elderly, people with chronic diseases.
We’re also establishing, this fiscal year, 15 primary care networks established in communities that will bring new resources to communities to address issues of attachment — of attaching more people to nurse practitioners and family doctors. We’re supporting community health centres, including a couple in the member’s constituency that, again, at a community level, establish team-based care to provide the care people need when they need it.
We are hiring 200 new nurse practitioners and 50 new pharmacists to support these actions across British Columbia, because such things are needed. In the member’s constituency, because I know he’s very interested in this, one of those primary care networks is going to be established this year to ensure that people have the care that they need.
Mr. Speaker:
Saanich North and the Islands on a supplemental.
A. Olsen:
As a constituent recently wrote in to our office:
“We are surprised to learn that it is next to impossible to get a family doctor here and even harder to see a doctor in a walk-in clinic if you have a job.
“Both my husband and I have attempted to get into a clinic during the day, and even if you show up early, the wait is well over an hour if not longer. We have professional responsibilities and cannot take time off in the hopes that a doctor will be able to see us. This means we struggle to get prescriptions filled, referrals and results of any tests.
“I recently left work at noon to try to see a doctor, and I went to three different clinics that all turned me away because their doctor had already filled the quota for the day.”
In Saanich North and the Islands, we just recently lost a clinic. To the Minister of Health: what is he doing to ensure the lengthy and unpredictable wait times do not interfere with the ability of patients to reach care?
Hon. A. Dix:
Thank you to the member and to his constituents for bringing this forward. I think one of the key aspects of what we’re trying to do in the Premier’s plan is to address urgent primary care centres, of course, primary care networks and community health centres that will be open not just during the day but in the evenings and on weekends. We know that people working in British Columbia have health care needs not just from nine to five but all through the week. It’s why all of these actions will establish more care for people, give people more options for care and allow them to get the care when they need it.
This is a critical aspect of what we’re doing. This is a significant challenge. When I became Minister of Health, more than 750,000 people were without a family practice doctor or a nurse practitioner in B.C., which is a huge number of people, more than one in six. That, I say with respect, is five years after the launch of the GP for Me program, a program that didn’t have…. And two years after, it was abandoned. The program itself had good ideas. It wasn’t all bad. It wasn’t a problem. But it shows the challenge that all of us face as a province in addressing these issues. Increasingly, people struggle with chronic disease. We are living longer, which means we have new health challenges, and the challenge of mental health and addiction affects every community. That’s why we put in place a comprehensive primary care plan to address the problems of the member’s constituent and people in every community in British Columbia.
View my last question in question period about business competitiveness on the Saanich Peninsula.
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