In the B.C. election, parties are pitching different approaches to expanding services, recruiting staff and addressing wait times.
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Healthcare is the top issue for voters in the provincial election, according to polling by the Angus Reid Institute.
The BC NDP, led by David Eby, has promised not to cut health care and says it would build 20 new primary care clinics across the province and a third hospital in Surrey. The platform also includes pledges to increase the province’s capacity to train health professionals, offer incentives such as loan forgiveness to recruit doctors and nurses to rural areas, triple recruitment efforts in the U.S., and buy eight new MRI machines and 10 CT scanners.
The BC NDP says it would enshrine minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in law, expand Kelowna General Hospital and move ahead with the second phase of the Burnaby Hospital expansion.
The BC Conservatives, under Lorne Doerkson, say they would fully fund public health care and build 11 primary care clinics, along with a women’s and children’s hospital in Surrey. Their plan also calls for training and recruiting more doctors and nurses, creating a $50 million fund to keep rural ERs open, improving access to rural medical transport, conducting an independent review of the Mental Health Act, and funding private treatments for surgeries when wait-time benchmarks are exceeded.
A researcher and political economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Andrew Longhurst, said neither the NDP nor the Conservatives’ plans fully address the systemic issues behind problems in B.C.’s medical system. He said he has serious concerns about the Conservatives’ proposal to pay for private procedures, warning it could undermine public hospitals, reduce equitable access to surgical care and be costly. Longhurst also said he is not satisfied with how the Conservatives explain how they would pay for their commitments.
The BC Greens, according to Longhurst, offer solutions he views as more practical and evidence-based, including a pledge to build a Community Health Centre in every riding. The Greens also say they would create a consolidated provincial health authority, reduce bureaucracy and legislate mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios.
Other health-care promises mentioned include CentreBC’s goal of getting everyone a family doctor by 2031 and reducing bureaucratic “bloat” through streamlined administration, and OneBC’s proposal to allow private healthcare in the province and update vaccine protocols.
Doctors say they are glad the issue is getting attention but want frontline experience included in decision-making. Doctor’s of BC president Dr. Adam Thompson said frontline physicians and other emergency-room health-care professionals should be at decision-making tables to help develop tangible solutions available from the perspective of working on the ground.
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