Western Canada: B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix confronts mayors frustrated with the province’s worsening health care shortages

Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver this morning.

The annual gathering of British Columbia’s mayors has always been an opportunity for the premier and cabinet ministers to shore up municipal support and to take the temperature of communities. For their part, the mayors get a chance to button-hole policy makers all in one place. Frequently, the provincial cabinet arrives with policy and funding announcements squarely aimed at the audience.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Adrian Dix read the temperature and it was hot. He arrived with no goodies and even if he had, it’s unlikely they would have provided salve to rural mayors deeply worried about health resources in their communities.

In the past few months, two people died in Ashcroft after waiting for an ambulance that didn’t come for 30 minutes or more. Then an infant died in Barriere, B.C., prompting the mayor of that Southern Interior community to call for changes around which first responders are allowed to take patients to hospital. Earlier this week, a woman who suffered a stroke waited for more than an hour for an ambulance. She is now partially paralyzed and her family is demanding answers.

Mr. Dix spoke at a convention session entitled “Re-envisioning Health Care in B.C.” It says something about the current situation that Mr. Dix – a politician well experienced in communicating the soothing positive – opened his 20-minute speech saying the province has been in a health care crisis since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, 2020, if not before.

Reporter Andrea Woo was there as Mr. Dix listed off the challenges: a shortage of family doctors, nurses and ambulances and the increasing complexity of care that comes with an aging population. He noted there is work in progress: new hires, changing the way family doctors are paid and dismantling barriers to bringing in internationally educated physicians and more full-time ambulance paramedics.

But in regards to the challenges, the mayors knew all that and know it with searing familiarity.

Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell noted his community’s emergency department has had to close and divert ambulance arrivals more than 60 times this year. That has meant people requiring emergent care are sometimes waiting until emergency departments reopen in the morning, or driving one or two hours to another hospital.

“It’s a nightmare,” Mr. Blackwell said. “We keep waiting for some incredibly serious accident to happen when there’s limited ambulance coverage and no ER.”

As for the progress Mr. Dix outlined, all that is welcome, the mayors say, but Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian noted the problems are extreme and without a clear strategy to address them, little progress is being made. A new $417-million tower at Royal Inland Hospital, completed in March, has had little impact because of short staffing.

“I’m from forest fire country,” he said. “The speech was like dealing with an out-of-control forest fire: Lots of talk about what we’re doing on the southern flank; meanwhile, the north, west and east flanks are raging out of control.”

Speaking with reporters after the panel, Mr. Dix said the event was not a platform for announcements but rather an opportunity to hear from delegates and engage in discussions. He said there has been significant progress in several key areas, and that announcements would be forthcoming.

“We have a significant amount to report,” he said.

The mayors are calling for pan-Canadian licensure so that health care workers practise anywhere in Canada, and expediting licensure for internationally educated medical graduates. They are also seeking better supports for family doctors, most of whom are paid a basic rate of about $32 per patient visit, regardless of the complexity of the patient’s issue. Their practices are operated as businesses, with physicians handling administrative tasks paying for overhead costs, such as rent, utilities and staff that can cost more than a third of a doctor’s pay.

Mr. Dix announced last month that a new compensation model is being developed, and that family doctors are eligible for an average of $25,000 each to assist with operational costs until the new model is announced in the fall.

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.