SOUND OFF: John Horgan continues to blame others for hospital crisis
WITH EACH PASSING DAY, pressure continues to build on front-line workers at Royal Inland Hospital as a shortage of health care workers impacts patient care. It is a sad situation for all involved, whether it’s the doctors and nurses approaching complete burnout or patients and their families who are waiting too long to get care.
The situation is no better for those trying to access primary care in Kamloops. Most walk-in clinics have closed, as have several general practitioners’ offices. Making matters worse, the NDP’s much vaunted Urgent Primary Care Centre is not seeing a volume of patients to pick up this slack nor reduce the number folks presenting at RIH’s emergency department.
Yet when it comes to relieving this unsustainable weight on everyone’s shoulders, John Horgan continues to do what John Horgan does best — play the blame game.
Responding to questions about the hospital crisis following his speech at the recent Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, Horgan first tried to lay blame on COVID-19. We all know the pandemic has further stretched resources, but the truth of the matter is that they were already stretched long before COVID-19 came along. The 2019 B.C. Labour Market Outlook showed 33,100 nursing vacancies expected between 2019 and 2029.