The Ministry of Health has changed the way it reports staffing levels at urgent primary care centres which critics say deliberately hides how understaffed the centres are with family physicians.
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.
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.
“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 these 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.
