The Leader of the BC Green Party is calling for a community approach to bring healthcare specialists directly to patients across the province.
“Being on a team, you can accomplish so much more than you can as a single person.”
Sonia Fursteneau says community healthcare centres would solve many problems, including the burden many family physicians have when running their own business.
She suggests there isn’t a shortage of family doctors; but rather a shortage of family doctors willing to work in the system as it is right now.
“If we create a system that says we’re going to take these burdens of administration and running your own small business and hiring your own staff and all of these things, we can take that burden off of your shoulders and let you just be a doctor and also be part of a team so that you have that that team-based ability to work.”
Fursteneau says the province should have full responsibility to provide administrative infrastructure for these healthcare professionals.
“What the province should be doing is saying, ‘we’re gonna go find those spaces in communities and we’re going to buy up the infrastructure so that doctors can form their teams and have a place to build them.”
She says the health centres would have teams of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, psychologists, and social workers, which would help take relief off of family physicians in both urban and rural municipalities.
“You have a whole team and so the burden isn’t just on one doctor which is often the case right now in small communities where there are one or two family doctors, and it’s too much because they’re often the emergency room doctor,” she explained.
“Now all of a sudden, when the patient comes in, maybe that patient can be seen by the nurse practitioner today or maybe it’s a psychologist visit or maybe it’s a social worker or a family doctor; but the whole team is working together.”
Fursteneau stresses addressing the healthcare system must be at the forefront across the country.
“We’re not alone in this crisis and I think it’s starting to be recognized that we have to measure our outcomes. We can’t just say we’re putting in hundreds of millions of dollars into the system and not tell the public what we expect.”
Healthcare professionals in BC need the support of the government to deliver quality care. We’re calling for a community approach, bringing specialists directly to patients & supporting physicians to do their best work. #bcpoli
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— Sonia Furstenau (@SoniaFurstenau) February 2, 2023
