Resolution at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting in Whistler calls on province to increase funding and training opportunities for health-care professionals
Port McNeill Mayor Gaby Wickstrom, whose north Island town has been hit by revolving weekend emergency-room closings, applauded fellow mayors Wednesday for passing a motion calling on the province to take urgent steps to keep ERs open 24 hours a day across B.C.
Municipal officials representing almost 200 local governments are gathered at the annual conference of the UBCM at the Whistler Conference Centre this week. The convention wraps up Friday with an address from Premier John Horgan. Dix told the mayors that the province has added 38,000 health-care workers. The Health Ministry said Wednesday more surgeries were performed the week of Aug. 7-13 than in the same week in 2019 — 6,365, up 356 — and that the number of MRI exams was 69 per cent higher in the last fiscal year than in 2016-17.
Dix did address some of the solutions the province is working toward, such as expediting the accreditation process for foreign doctors, expanding the scope of pharmacists, and working to change the payment system for family doctors, but the mayors noted that no concrete plan or money was attached. Island Health workers have “rolled up their sleeves” and helped with solutions, but once those are passed up through layers of senior administration, they become “clogged,” Wickstrom said.
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