The four candidates running in Prince George-Mackenzie squared off on health care Wednesday, Oct. 16 in the second of two debates hosted by community radio station CFIS 93.1.
Kiel Giddens of the Conservative Party of BC, James Steidle of the BC Green Party, independent candidate Rachael Weber and Shar McCrory of the BC NDP were questioned at the station in front of a studio audience, with the two-hour forum also broadcast live.
They were asked what their party would do to ensure timely and suitable health-care services compared to communities in the southern part of the province.
“Well, our health care system is in a state of crisis, and we have the longest wait times in Canada for walk-in clinics, and as we heard (this week), our urgent and primary care clinic is at risk of closing,” answered Giddens. “That's a huge risk to all of us in Prince George. We already know that the lineups at that facility at Parkwood are around the block as it is, but right now, under the NDP, it's not just the walk-in clinics, it's the wait times for hip surgeries and knee surgeries.”
He said he’s met people who have waited three, four or five years for knee or hips surgeries, and proposed a possible solution: Flying patients to other parts of the country or even the U.S., with the option of using private clinics.
“What the Conservative Party has put forward is a wait times guarantee. So if we can't get you to knee surgery here, we'll send you to Alberta. The NDP are doing this by sending cancer patients to the United States. Let's get it done here in Canada, here in British Columbia. Sometimes that needs to be in a private clinic. That's where the doctors and physicians have the opportunity to expand their scope of practice within that clinic to get more results for patients. We can't have people waiting on wait lists for their entire lives. We need results for patients, and that's what we need, innovation in our health care with our patient-first guarantee.”
McCrory said the NDP will continue its current approach to health care, which includes the expansion of the University Hospital of Northern BC in Prince George and the campaign-trail announcement of a new helipad for the facility.
And, she pledged, the NDP will ensure that everyone has a family doctor or nurse practitioner by the end of next year.
“One of the things that we're going to do is everyone who's on the health registry will be connected with a physician or nurse practitioner by the end of 2025,” she said. “We've increased and continue to increase pharmacists and their role and what they're able to do for prescriptions and diagnoses.”
She also pointed to the addition of more paramedics in Mackenzie, the hiring of more physicians’ assistants and the new medical school at Simon Fraser University. “And we’ve also got longer-range helicopters for serving the needs of our rural and remote communities to be able to come to the new helipad,” she said.
Weber, who had been the BC Conservative candidate for the riding before the folding of BC United’s campaign, which saw Giddens replace her on the ballot, was next.
“You know, I don't have fancy stats that were written for me like Kiel. I don't think people care about stats. I think they care about having hospitals fully staffed and functioning. I can't talk about a helicopter, but I think it's not important to have a helicopter if you don't have a hospital that's going to be staffed with people. My hospital in Mackenzie has been closed. We had it closed for 12 days.”
This led to one crisis she described for the audience.
“We had a young couple whose husband was having a heart attack and went to the door, pounded on the door, and our nurse came and said ‘I'm sorry, I can't let you in.’ He had a heart attack. And if it wasn't for the assistance of the staff around them that sent them to Prince George, which, by the way, we didn't even have an ambulance in our town to get him there, and they got him to Prince George and they got him to Vancouver just in the nick of time to save his life.
“These are real world issues. So I'm sorry I don't have these stats or a promise of a helicopter. I can tell you that we need to reduce the wait times. And how we do that is to prioritize reducing wait times in hospitals by introducing private health care options for those who can afford it while maintaining a strong public system.”
She also said the province needs to incentivize doctors and nurses to keep them in the North, and called for increased and more efficient mental health funding and treatment for adults and youth.
Steidle drew comparisons between the Conservatives’ position on ICBC and its approach to health care.
“I think one of the most ridiculous ideas I've heard in this whole campaign is this idea of privatizing ICBC, which the BC Conservatives want to do,” he said, pointing to Alberta as an example of what that would look like. “They’ve got insurance rates that are double what they are in BC, and the concerning thing about this idea, not only are you going to be paying way more money for your auto insurance, but this tells me that the BC Conservatives are philosophically opposed to single-payer insurance. That's what ICBC is. If you're philosophically opposed to that model of insurance, you're going to be philosophically opposed to public health care.
“You know, already we're hearing the BC Conservatives talk about that. I think John Rustad, quote me, or correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he said a few statements about being in favor of privatization of health care, and I think that's a huge question on the table for people in our province.”
Steidle said a Green government would reduce the paperwork doctors have to do in order to free up their time to provide more care.
“A million hours of doctor time is spent just doing paperwork,” he said. “So if we had a way to get that paperwork out of the hands of the doctors, get them to focus on care, we could provide a lot more care for the same amount of money. So there's a lot of practical things we could do for health care. But at the end of the day, we've got to maintain our public health care system.”
During the two-minute debate period after candidates answered the question, Giddens came back with a response to the issue of privatization.
“The Conservatives have made clear that we will keep the single-payer model, but have opened up to solutions outside of the hospital setting to get results for patients, because that's what ultimately matters, keeping that single-payer model, a publicly funded health care system, but distribute it,” he said. “We already have this in care homes for seniors. We have it in doctors' offices and clinics, but the scope of practice is limited. Doctors are telling me that they have moral trauma because of the fact they can't get the results that they need. They can't keep the scope of practice for what they need to keep their patients healthy and safe in our communities.”
Steidle interjected: “So single-payer works for health insurance, but just not ICBC. OK.”
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