Press Release
August 4, 2022
*For Immediate Release*
The healthcare crisis in rural BC has become a significant public safety concern. The BC Rural Health Network is overwhelmed with public complaints, concerns, and reports of serious health impacts that reduction of services has created. Every day rural residents’ wellbeing is being affected by the services removed, reduced, and understaffed.
The impact to rural residents is compounding and the lack of rural focus causes great concern for all rural residents. Peggy Skelton, President of the BC Rural Health Network, has listened to the public outcry, calls for action and investment in rural health and wellness, “Our membership and the residents of rural BC cannot continue to have services taken or diverted to support larger urban populations.” She stated, “BC rural communities are continually used as a buffer for staff shortages in larger centres and the negative impact on rural residents’ compounds. Imagine the situation where there is an emergency and the nearest facility is a considerable distance away, sometimes hours away. You try to get to your health care facility only to find the facility is now on diversion. Furthermore, the ambulances that transport people in an emergency are now much further away from their bases. Their ability to respond can increase by hours, not minutes! It is unacceptable and unsafe!”
The long weekend was difficult for many who needed care in many communities in both rural and urban areas which are both affected by staffing issues throughout BC. The heat added to the load on the already faltering system. Mayor Leonard Casley of New Denver has been fighting to keep his community’s services for over 20 years and has never seen the system as bad as it is currently, “Last week the Interior Health Authority reduced our emergency operating hours to 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week (again and indefinitely), which leaves our residents and surrounding catchment without any nighttime ER. It is just a matter of time before people lose their life! Going into this last long weekend there was one available ambulance attendant for our community, the community of Nakusp and the entire surrounding populations! They’re moving our nurses to cover other sites and that leaves us short.”
The folks in the Slocan Valley are not alone! From the tip of Vancouver Island, through the rural communities in the far north, the situation is similar and with the same causes becoming clear. Peggy Skelton continued “It’s province wide and it’s getting worse. The centralization of services cannot include the centralization of the management of services. When centralization occurred and communities lost their control of their own facilities, we saw an immediate change within rural BC. Community involved management ensures community ‘know how’ is put into play. Rural communities need their administrator of a local hospital or emergency care facility to be accountable to that community. Then, you can guarantee that nurses, physicians, and healthcare providers generally, wouldn’t be shipped out to larger centres to fill a gap while leaving their community with no services.”
Peggy concluded “We also seem to have forgotten about the benefit of our volunteer base, many of whom feel ignored. We need to support these essential workers as well. Community level input on health needs to return. Our members and rural residents have solutions to many of the problems and we need to be involved more directly in our healthcare system. Investment in grassroots community programs, investment in recruitment of rural students into healthcare, investment in new approaches, investment in rural participation in health generally is not happening. This is causing major problems for rural communities, but the lack of rural investment impacts the wellbeing of us all!”
The BCRHN is the healthcare voice of the rural residents of British Columbia and seeks better health outcomes for all people, through solutions-based approaches with governments, and information provision to residents.
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Media Inquiries to paul.adams@bcruralhealth.org 250-295-5436
