SOUND OFF: Doctors, nurses and patients need more support from government
WE’RE MARKING WORLD FAMILY DOCTOR DAY THIS WEEK, a timely opportunity to celebrate our hard-working physicians but also remind the current government about the urgent need to invest in B.C. health care and provide British Columbians will real access to quality, timely primary care.
Today, about a million British Columbians do not have a family doctor or primary care provider. This is putting serious pressure on a healthcare system that is already overwhelmed. It is putting additional strain on emergency rooms, urgent primary care centres and walk-in clinics as more and more people turn to these facilities in the absence of a family doctor. People are becoming hopeless about their ability to get basic medical attention in this province.
Meanwhile, nurses and other frontline health care workers like paramedics have shouldered an incredible burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Long hours, overwhelmed hospitals and staffing shortages have exhausted our healthcare workers and forced many to leave, or consider leaving, their professions.
We are seeing healthcare challenges in every corner of the province, including in my riding of Fraser-Nicola. In the past six months in Merritt, we have seen the emergency room at Nicola Valley Hospital forced to temporarily close a number of times because Interior Health has been unable to staff it — as recently as earlier this week.
