How the parties are proposing to fix B.C.'s health-care system

Mike Goetz has added bill collector to his list of responsibilities as mayor of Merritt in British Columbia's Interior.

In June, Goetz sent the province an invoice for $103,831.87, the cost, he said, for closures of the Nicola Valley Hospital emergency room.

He said the bill for the 19 closures last year and the first five closures this year includes a partial refund of what the city paid for hospital services, as well as the cost when firefighters respond to medical calls because paramedics are busy transporting patients to Kamloops, about 85 kilometres to the northeast.

And GST, of course. 

Goetz said the costs would be equivalent to a one-per-cent increase in taxes for the community, unless the province picked up the tab, and came on top of the more than $600,000 the municipality already pays the province annually for its hospital. 

"That's unacceptable to ask our taxpayers to pay for this system twice. We've paid for it once, we expect 365 days of coverage, because that's what you charged us for," he said.

The mayor isn't alone in his frustration with the state of B.C.'s health system. Temporary emergency room shutdowns have hit rural and urban hospitals, hundreds of cancer patients have been sent across the U.S. border for radiation therapy, and there's a shortage of nurses and doctors. 

It's a central issue ahead of the Oct. 19 provincial election, with the B.C. Conservatives offering sweeping changes and at least one major change promised by the governing New Democrats not set to be fully implemented until after the election.

Dr. Rita McCracken, a family doctor and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, said fixing the province's health-care system will require systemic changes, beyond hiring more employees.

"We don't have enough people doing the jobs, but at the same time, we have a system that is made out of Scotch Tape and wet paper that we're trying to graduate people and hire people into," she said.

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad made health care the focus of his first major platform commitment in July, long before Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon suspended his B.C. United Party's campaign and threw his support behind the Conservatives.

The Conservatives say that if elected they will pay to send more people outside the province for health care and expand the use of private clinics. Rustad has also promised to compensate health workers who lost their jobs for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

"Our health-care system in B.C. is in crisis. More than that, it is failing. More money into the system is not the solution," Rustad said in July.

Rustad faced criticism Monday over a video, circulated by the NDP, in which he says he regrets getting the "so-called vaccine" against COVID-19. The video is an edited version of longer footage posted online by the B.C. Public Service Employees for Freedom, a group of former workers, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, who believe vaccination mandates in workplaces violated medical privacy and human rights.