Your March 2024 monthly update from the BC Health Coalition
UPDATE
Will BC’s Long-Term Care Funding Review Prioritize Residents’ Needs?
This just-released Tyee article by Andrew MacLeod digs into the $1.5 million contract the Ministry of Health has awarded a large international accounting firm to tell it how to redesign the province’s model for long-term care. BC Health Coalition campaigner Ayendri Riddell raises concerns about the quality of stakeholder engagement that can come from this process. “The worst-case scenario is that the lobbyist group that represents the private long-term care providers, which is the BC Care Providers, would hijack this process and would be in charge of shaping these mechanisms that were supposed to be implemented to hold them accountable.” This scenario would represent “the fox guarding the hen house,” Riddell said. READ MORE.
EVENTS
Call for health care workers from all professions: join us to share your stories and ideas for change!
What: Online Health Care Worker House Meeting
When: April 10th, 7-8:30pm
Advance registration required
We constantly hear about the staffing shortages across our health care system, and we know that burnout continues to drive caring and qualified professionals to leave their jobs or fields. We believe the voices of frontline workers are essential to identify solutions to current staffing challenges.
This 1.5 hour meeting will provide a safer, confidential space for workers to connect, share their stories, and exchange ideas for change. Small group conversations of 5-8 will have you meeting workers from a mix of professions and settings. Whether you work in a hospital, community health centre, residential facility, or in community, as a physiotherapist, nurse, care aide, or receptionist, all health care workers welcome!
In this first session of Visions and Solutions, a BC Health Coalition Lunch n’ Learn series, we dig deep into the vision for community-governed primary care.
What: Lunch n’ Learn – Community-driven primary care solutions
When: Tuesday, April 2, from 12:00-1:00pm
Advance registration required
If you’ve ever felt powerless to improve primary care access in your community, then you have first-hand experience with a key gap in BC’s primary health care system. Many of us struggle to find timely access to a family doctor, nurse practitioner, or a primary care team. We also lack opportunities to improve care for our broader communities.
We’ll talk with Tara Kiran from the OurCare project, a national conversation with people in Canada about the future of primary care, and learn why the public identified accountability to communities as one of six standards for primary care. Then we’ll learn about existing models for improving community participation in primary care. We’ll focus on Community Health Centres and hear from community leaders’ first hand experience in shaping primary care in their community.
#BetterMedicare Webinar Series: Pharmacare
What: Pharmacare webinar
When: March 28th at 5pm PT
Advance registration required
Join our friends at Canadian Doctors of Medicare at their #BetterMedicare webinar on March 28th at 5 p.m. PT, where we they discuss the Pharmacare legislation and the next steps for improving access to medications in Canada. They welcome Pauline Worsfold, Dr. Steve Morgan, and Dr. Nav Persaud as panelists. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Sarah Gander. CDM isdetermined to keep fighting until every Canadian can access vital medications, regardless of income or job status.
Public Health News, Updates & Resources
B.C. Indigenous concerns about doctor shortage, health care racism persist. Tsilhqot’in First Nation say calls to action resulting from a 2020 report remain unaddressed.
CT scanner disruptions grow as BC medical imaging hangs by a thread. A growing number of service disruptions to CT scanning service in the Lower Mainland has British Columbia’s radiation technologists sounding the alarm as the health authority downplays the situation.
What happens when privatizing surgical procedures drives up health care costs. Private for-profits cost the public more for the same care. As trust in Ontario public health care delivery erodes, officials become more likely to look to private clinics in a desperate attempt to address the crisis.
National pharmacare must be protected from corporate interests. The committee to be set up to work out the details of the new program must be free of members who have any financial conflict of interest.
Five ways to fix emergency care in BC. Strengthening primary care, mental health supports and transport could improve health in and out of hospitals, report UBC med students.
B.C.’s seniors advocate blames long-term care waits on lack of home support. While the province has spent more on residential care and home support, added new beds, and increased home support clients, “population growth has basically dwarfed those investments”, said Isobel Mackenzie at the release of her last report.
BC senior services expanding to support at-home care. The $354 million investment announced by BC’s health minister includes $227 to add 900 new health care providers to the workforce to support seniors at home.