This week is National Nursing Week. It is usually a time to celebrate the sacrifices and hard work of nurses. However, this year the Nursing week took a rather sombre tone and became a point of hot debate in and outside the BC legislature when opposition leaders and BC Nurses’ Union demanded answers from the government for continuing shortfalls in our province’s healthcare system.

The BCNU hosted a vigil in BC’s capital Victoria to give nurses, first responders and families time to reflect on the impacts COVID-19 and the opioid crisis have had on mental and physical health of nurses. Liberal opposition leader Shirley Bond, on the other hand, has been pointing serious concerns about increasing wait times and shortage of family doctors which can have long term effect on the over all health of British Columbians.

The BCNU says staffing concerns, working conditions and patient care are top of mind for nurses, calling them “long-standing problems” impacting their mental health and patient care.

According to BC’s latest Labour Market Outlook the province is set to need upwards of 26,000 nurses by 2031 to meet the needs of British Columbians. However, 51 per cent of nurses surveyed by BCNU last year said the experience of the pandemic had them considering leaving the profession altogether.

“Nurses are fully dedicated to their patients, but the staffing shortages are at the point where nurses are burnt out as they take on extra responsibilities to ensure standards of care are met,” said BCNU president Aman Grewal. “I fear that if action isn’t taken to retain the nurses we have, we’ll see many more making the difficult decision to quit.”

Leader of the Official Opposition and BC Liberal Critic for Health Shirley Bond has been raising alarm bells in the legislature about shortage of family doctors.

“Right now, more than 900,000 people in our province do not have a family doctor or primary care provider,” said Bond.

Explaining the importance of family doctors, she said, “Family doctors build lasting relationships with their patients. They work through out the course of their patient’s lives and have the ability to practice preventative medicine, to screen their patients for more serious conditions and to catch things before they become a larger problem. The history and relationships help make them accurate diagnosis and help them to monitor our health changing throughout the years.” However, lack of family doctors is leaving BC people without preventive care.

The family doctors’ shortage is being felt across the province and over 38,000 people have signed a petition started by Camille Currie. The petition called Bring back our Family Doctors and our Walk-in Clinics reads, “Many individuals have been waiting for years to secure a family doctor, without success.  Now, with recent news of more departures and closures on the Island and elsewhere, many more of us who were fortunate enough to have had a family doctor in our community are left without.  Walk-in clinics are disappearing, and families are being abandoned in their care of the sick and the vulnerable.”

It also stated that 40% of family doctors in BC are over 55. This means that within 5 to10 years, we will need to replace 40% of our family doctors, in addition to addressing the already alarming shortage of family doctors.  “None of these efforts even address the looming health care burden of the aging Baby Boomers, the largest demographic group yet to require health and medical services.”

Bond said that with 2,600 doctors nearing retirement across the province, the problem will only continue to worsen “unless this government takes immediate and decisive action.”

The lack of family doctors only adds to the stress, as people are forced to go to walk-in clinics or our overwhelmed emergency rooms for basic care which in turn are putting more pressure on the overwhelmed healthcare systems leading to increasing wait times.

A Canadian tech company that publishes wait times for walk-in clinics across the country in its recent survey said patients in BC and Nova Scotia have the longest wait times across Canada compared to Ontario and Alberta. “British Columbians have to wait more than double the amount of time (58 minutes) to see a physician at a walk-in clinic, compared to Ontarioans who wait an average of 15 minutes,” it said. It also mentioned that BC’s average wait time increased by 15 minutes from 2019 to 2021.

The study found the cities with the longest wait times across Canada were Victoria, with 161 minutes, Kelowna (91 minutes), White Rock (83), North Vancouver (74), Vancouver (65), Maple Ridge (61), Burlington, Ont. (51), Port Coquitlam (49), London, Ont. (49), and Grande Prairie, Alta. (45).

“British Columbia is also the only province that has seen wait times increase over the last few years, with average waits increasing nearly 50 per cent since 2019,” Bond pointed.

Adrian Dix, health minister, while addressing the issue on the National Nursing Week, said, that the government acknowledges the significant toll this has had on the nursing workforce and is dedicated to retain and support nurses in the province. “On April 19, 2022, government announced new supports for internationally educated nurses. These new supports include the consolidation of the provincially based assessment processes for internationally educated nurse candidates, approximately $9 million in bursaries to help with assessment fees and new nurse navigator positions to guide candidates through the assessment and licensing processes.”

On Feb. 20, 2022, government announced that 602 new nursing seats are being added to public post-secondary institutions throughout the province. 

When it comes to wait times, Dix said that there has yet to be a proper assessment of the numbers released by Medimap, CBC reported. He pointed to the government’s ongoing efforts to build a strong health-care system, including the opening of 28 urgent and primary care centres with more than a million patient visits.

While all these efforts are long term solutions, the government is still being questioned by people and even family doctors about finding long term solutions for family doctors’ shortage.

Bond says government needs to increase the number of family doctors in B.C. who choose to practice family medicine, as well as have honest conversations with doctors and develop solutions that will lead to better outcomes for both patients and healthcare professionals.