Northern B.C. patients wait just to get on a wait list as HR reports show doctor shortage continues
Bob Storey is waiting to be put on a waiting list.
Walking with a limp and a cane, the longtime resident of Fraser Lake, B.C., is due to see a doctor about the osteo-arthritis in his hip in January 2023. It’s been a nine-month wait for the appointment. He’s hoping for a hip replacement, but he’s going to have to wait even longer for that.
The town, located about 160 kilometres west of Prince George, B.C., is in the Northern Health authority, where the average wait time for a hip replacement is among the longest of all B.C.’s health authorities and more than double the provincial average.
“If you’re rich enough you can go elsewhere and get it done, when you don’t have the money you gotta stick around,” he said.
Storey’s experience isn’t uncommon in B.C.’s vast Northern Health authority, which covers a geographical area larger than France, where long surgery wait times and a high demand for services hasn’t been met with a significant enough increase in supply, according to its latest Human Resources report.
If you’re rich enough you can go elsewhere and get it done, when you don’t have the money you gotta stick around.– Bob Storey, on the long wait for hip replacement surgery in B.C.’s Northern Health authority
The report, presented at a public board meeting in mid-October, shows that more than 20 per cent of the health region’s baseline positions — the minimum number of nurses or health workers needed in a department or unit to meet patient needs — are unfilled.
The organization says it is currently meeting most of the hours needed for shifts with its current workforce, a strategy nursing unions have argued is unsustainable.
The report also notes that health workers are leaving the organization at nearly the same rate that they’re being recruited.
The numbers don’t have the shock value they used to for Paul Adams, a spokesperson for the B.C. Rural Health Network, a group he says represents the voice of 1.5 million rural residents in the province.
“It’s across the board, and I don’t know if it gives us any solace of misery loves company, but it’s endemic across Canada, across rural Canada for sure,” Adams said.
The new numbers offer the latest glimpse into Canada’s ongoing health-care crisis.
