The COVID-19 pandemic has put the spotlight on a health-care crisis that has been plaguing rural B.C. for years.
“We’ve been struggling with recruitment and retention, with enough physicians, nurses, midwives, for two decades,” said Dr. Jude Kornelsen, with the UBC Centre for Rural Research.
“We’ve been struggling with adequate patient transport from their community to a larger centre.”
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Advocates for health care in small communities have said for far too long the wants and needs of residents have been ignored.
“They’re not feeling very listened to,” said Peggy Skelton, BC Rural Health Network’s president.
“They feel like people are discussing what should be happening in rural areas without really discussing it with the people who live in those rural areas.”
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The health network said solutions to health-care challenges are much harder to fix in small towns compared to urban centres.
“Rural is not smaller urban,” said Dr. Kornelson.
“That’s one of the mistakes made in planning. (It’s) completely different, (in terms of) economies of scale and access to resources.”
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The B.C. premier has said he’s heard frustration, despondency, and a lack of hope on the future of health care from rural mayors.
“My job is to hear those concerns,” John Horgan said in Whistler last week.
“I’m well aware of them. These problems didn’t arrive yesterday and they won’t be solved magically tomorrow.”
But advocates want action now.
The BC Rural Health Network is launching an “implementation committee.”
Researchers and residents will be giving policymakers evidence-based solutions to rural health-care challenges.
Over this past summer, hospitals in communities such as Clearwater, Port Hardy, Port McNeill, Merritt, Oliver and Mackenzie have all had to temporarily close their emergency rooms due to staffing shortages.
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