Dozens rally outside MLA's office for better access to family doctors

Photo: Kim Rhindress

Dozens of West Kelowna residents rallied outside Kelowna West MLA Ben Stewart's office Thursday morning, protesting the right to a family doctor.

The rally was one of several demonstrations across the province calling for more better access to healthcare.

"We walked from White Spot to the MLA's office and back. Almost one million people in B.C. don't have family doctors now and part of the reason for that is the way physicians are paid. Specialists are paid sometimes twice or three times more per patient so as people are graduating medical school they are choosing to not go into family practice," protester Kim Rhindress said, calling the system broken.

"We need about 600 more family doctors so that everyone can get care. They are the gate keepers for all the specialists appointments. You can't just keep going to walk in clinics for care. It is not getting better. It is only getting worse," she said.

Rhindress says she is fortunate to have a family doctor.

"We just went to support our doctors. We are very lucky that we have doctors, but a lot of people don't," she added.

An estimated one-in-five people cannot find a family doctor in B.C.

Protesters also gathered at the B.C. Legislature on Thursday morning while politicians debated the issue inside.

Camille Currie, the founder of B.C. Healthcare Matters, was inside the legislature during question period as the rally started. Having started the organization in February after learning she would lose her physician at Eagle Creek Medical Clinic in View Royal in April, Currie has since whipped up support from doctors, nurses and people both without a family doctor and those in fear of losing one.

The organization’s main petition for government action on the family doctor shortage crisis now has more than 42,000 signatures. It was presented in the legislature by health critic Shirley Bond.

Bond asked the health minister during question period how the province could make a $789-million replacement of the Royal B.C. Museum more important than “British Columbians who are anxious, upset, and concerned that they cannot access a family doctor in this province?”

Health Minister Adrian Dix said there are 30,000 more people working in health care today than there were two years ago. In the face of the pandemic, the province developed new fee codes to allow for more telehealth and virtual visits, he said.

“I’m very proud of the work of family practice doctors in this period,” said Dix.

Doctors, who are typically paid using a fee-for-service model in B.C., have been asking the province for more options when it comes to how they’re paid, such as salary or contracts, along with financial assistance with overhead costs, provision of more allied health professionals, more training spaces for physicians, and an improved accreditation process for foreign-trained doctors.

Physicians calling themselves Family Doctors for Better Patient Care in B.C. prepared a leaflet titled “Commonsense Solutions to a Crisis in British Columbia” and are handing them out at today’s rally.

The leaflet notes B.C. has about 6,800 trained family doctors — yet only about 3,500 are practising in that role, according to the General Service Practice Committee’s 2020-21 year-in-review. It blames the province for “starving” family doctors from appropriate levels of funding and causing “an exodus” from the profession.

The doctors advise the province to employ the same data-driven, evidenced-based, urgent action used during the pandemic to address doctors’ needs; establish pay equity between family doctors and higher-paid specialists; and provide incentives for hundreds of doctors in specialties to return to family medicine.

with files from Cindy E. Harnett, Times Colonist