Green Party calls on B.C. government to take urgent action on family doctor shortage

Hundreds of thousands of British Columbians do not have a family doctor and the provincial government needs to rectify the situation immediately, says the leader of the B.C. Green Party.

Sonia Furstenau, the leader of the B.C. Greens and MLA for Cowichan Valley, made the statement during a Wednesday morning news conference.

She said up to 900,000 provincial residents need a physician and called on the B.C. NDP to overhaul the province's current fee-for-service model — saying the restructuring is critically needed to attract and retain doctors because the shortage is predicted to keep growing.

Under the model, doctors and hospitals are paid by the province for each office visit, test or operation. To stay afloat, she says, they need to continuously work through a high volume of patients and run a business at the same time.

This model, said Furstenau, is turning prospective doctors away from B.C. and also leaves those fortunate enough to have a doctor right now afraid of what will happen when their physician retires.

"People have been without access to consistent quality health care for quite some time and it's reaching a breaking point," said Furstenau. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."

In a statement released after the news event, the Green Party laid out specifics of its request, including modernizing the fee-for-service model and expanding alternative payment models.

"This government needs to explore models of practice that maintain or improve the current level of in-person, in-community care that doctors are providing," said Furstenau in the statement.

Speaking to reporters, she noted the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of British Columbians has yet to be fully realized and said, in combination with growing wealth inequality and an aging population, that will put further strain on an already stressed system.

"Now, more than ever, people need access to quality primary care," she said.

Dr. Dan Cutfeet is a senior physician with the Namgis First Nation in Alert Bay, B.C. He told CBC's The Early Edition mental health services have really taken a hit during the pandemic.

He said it usually took about two weeks for a patient to access a mental health counsellor before anyone had heard of COVID-19. Now, he says, it's a wait of at least two months.

"It always has, in many ways, fallen to a family physician where, you know, I might be seeing somebody weekly and sort of counselling them in sessions, but that's sort of taken on more importance now, just because we can't access the mental health that we need."

Alert Bay is a village on Cormorant Island, located about a 40-minute ferry ride from Port McNeill on Vancouver Island, the closest urban centre. Along with two other Indigenous physicians, Cutfeet treats patients for three remote First Nations in the region.