Medicare needs restructuring. The initiatives announced by the B.C. NDP government last week could be the beginning of that restructuring, or they could be another fizzled effort at tinkering with the system.
The B.C. Liberals campaigned on their “A GP for Me” program in the 2013 election, with a promise to link every British Columbian with a family physician by 2015. While the Liberals did manage to increase the number of people who had access to family doctors, they fell far short of the goal. By 2016, it was acknowledged that the slogan was an “aspirational target.”
Premier John Horgan’s government has announced two initiatives: the creation of new “urgent primary care centres” across the province and the hiring of up to 200 new family doctors, along with funding for 200 new nurse practitioner positions.
The idea is to create a multi-provider setting involving health professionals such as nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists and social workers, with the general practitioner as the hub. This is progress — physicians won’t be spending their time on administrative matters.
It’s commendable that the province will try to recruit up to 200 new family doctors, but it’s not enough — we probably lose that many each year to retirement.
Nevertheless, these are good steps if the government can build momentum and maintain it. This is significant progress, but reforming primary care is far more complicated than what is taking place here.
