Nov 10, 2022

B.C. government now masking data on doctor shortages at primary care clinics Back to video In order to determine whether the province’s 30 centres are still facing a shortage of family doctors, Postmedia News asked the Ministry of Health for the latest staffing figures. Sunrise presented by Vancouver Sun Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion delivered straight to your inbox at 7 a.m., Monday to Friday. Email Address Sign Up By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise presented by Vancouver Sun will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Article content A document called the Primary Care Workforce Supplement, leaked by the B.C. Liberals in May , showed that most urgent primary care centres, or UPCCs, had only a fraction of the family doctors they’re supposed to have. The document, which covered the period Feb. 4 to March 3, showed, for example, that the Westshore urgent primary care centre had one doctor out of the seven full-time doctors it was supposed to have. However, the latest document provided to Postmedia News, covering the period between June 24 to July 21, 2022, combines all full-time staff — which includes family physicians, nurse practitioners, licensed practical nurses, allied health workers, clinical pharmacists and Indigenous resources — into one single category. Advertisement 3 Article content That makes it impossible to determine how many family doctors work at each urgent primary care centre. The document shows primary care centres in the Island Health region continues to struggle with staffing: The region’s six centres have 88 full-time clinical staff, 46 positions shy of the 134 positions approved. Interior Health needs another 20 clinical staff before it reaches its full staffing complement at its seven centres. Fraser Health has hired 69 of the 80 full-time clinical staff approved for the six centres. Staffing in Vancouver Coastal Health has improved with 92 full-time clinical staff out of the 97 positions approved. Northern Health is just one full-time position short of the 13 approved for its two centres. Advertisement 4 Article content B.C. Liberal health critic Shirley Bond slammed the government for reducing transparency at a time when British Columbians without a family doctor want to know where to turn for urgent medical needs. “To find out that now there is once again a lack of willingness to provide specific details about individual UPCCs is just par for the course for this government,” she said. “British Columbians deserve to know the situation in UPCCs across the province.” The B.C. Liberals have called for a review of the primary care centres to determine if the health-authority run system of team-based care is working as it should. Health Minister Adrian Dix has touted thee centres and the larger system of team-based primary care networks as a way for people without a family doctor to get same-day appointments for urgent needs. The goal is also for patients to become attached to a physician, nurse practitioner or other medical professional in the team who can provide continuing care. Advertisement 5 Article content However, the centres  have struggled to keep up with patient demand, often putting up signs early in the morning saying appointments are full for the day. Chilliwack family physician Darren Joneson — who has raised concerns about the government spending millions in taxpayer dollars on the clinics without listening to family physicians on the best way to operate them — said staffing levels are an indirect measure of whether people are getting the care they need. The urgent primary care centre in Chilliwack only has one doctor and Joneson has heard from family physicians who turned down jobs at the centre because there’s frustration with the way they’re being run by the health authorities. “There’s not a whole lot of support from family doctors over this current rollout of UPCCs. We’re seeing that it’s hard to get family doctors (to work) there,” said Joneson, who opened his team-based clinic Spectrum Medical in 2020. Advertisement 6