Investing in healthcare

Driving forward, Today's BC Liberals will:

• Invest $2.7 billion over the next three years on infrastructure in the health sector.
• New St. Paul's replacement hospital in Vancouver
• Full re-development of Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster.
• Re-development of Burnaby Hospital in recognition of continued growth in Burnaby and the Fraser Health service delivery area.
• Penticton Regional Hospital redevelopment
• North Island Hospitals Project building 2 new hospitals in Courtney-Comox and Campbell River
• Royal Inland Hospital Patient Tower Project in Kamloops
• R. Baker upgrades in Quesnel
• Complete the emergency department at Nicola Valley Hospital and Health Centre
• Construction of 16 new operating rooms at Jim Pattison Pavilion at VGH
• Work with provincial health authorities and medical credentialing colleges to develop and implement a Ministerial Taskforce on Health Professional Expanded Scope of Practice with a special focus on expanding service access to rural and remote communities.
• Work with provincial medical credentialing colleges to safely and responsibly expand the scope of practice of nurse practitioners in British Columbia, thereby reducing pressure on doctors, registered nurses and other in-demand professions.
• Work with the Doctors of BC and BC Health Authorities to allow Nurse Practitioners in areas underserved by General Practitioners, access to MSP fee codes for treatment in addition to referral services.
• Explore the expansion of scope of practice for pharmacists.
• Build and publicly fund an additional 500 long term care beds across British Columbia by 2022.
• Invest $225 million to reduce surgical wait times for elective surgeries - with no impact on emergency surgeries.

Healthcare that works for you

John Horgan and the BC NDP will take action to make our healthcare system work for you. We will make improving your access to family doctors and other medical professionals the top priority for our Ministry of Health. We'll develop a new urgent care model that gets emergency room visitors the healthcare support they need faster, and we'll help rural British Columbians with an improved medical travel allowance.

At the same time, we will:

• Reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
• Invest in new hospitals and care facilities in communities across BC, plus home care and quality long-term care for BC seniors.
• Establish Urgent Family Care Centres across BC (open evenings and weekends), to help you get the one-on-one healthcare you need with the support of a full medical team.
• Invest in more paramedics, so that no one is left waiting for an ambulance in their time of critical need.
• Implement province-wide coordination to manage and actively monitor waitlists and speed up service delivery.
• Stop the decline in rural health services.
• Fund UBC's Therapeutics Initiative properly to keep drug costs down and patients safe.
• Work with the federal government to create a national pharmacare program and bulk purchasing of medication to keep costs low.
• Remove the age restriction on the insulin pump program for British Columbians living with diabetes.

Healthcare

A BC Green government will:

• Establish a ministry responsible for healthy living, wellness and preventative medicine
• Develop an Essential Drugs program to reduce the cost of prescription drugs
• Create a ministry for mental health and addictions
• Support seniors and others who need assistance to live in their own homes
• Add $100 million over 4 years to hire and support more social workers

Create Choice in Healthcare

Let's admit that the performance of our public healthcare system is lousy. A trip to emergency rarely takes less than several hours. It can take months to see a specialist. Patients on waitlists see their conditions worsen or even die, yet the lines get longer. Why? It isn't because we don’t spend enough on healthcare, which is the single largest item in our provincial budget and continues to grow. No, the problem is that this sector of economy hasn’t been provided with incentives to innovate or be more efficient. If patients had more control over how resources were allocated, there would be much better service and much less waste.​ allow health practitioners (doctors, nurses and paramedics) to offer services for mutually agreeable fees that are not covered by MSP (home visits, phone prescriptions, etc.) allow health insurance alternatives to MSP so that consumers can choose an insurance plan better tailored to their own needs allow more experimentation in care delivery models, such as primary direct care (where health providers contract to provide patients with a clear set of medical services for a low monthly fee)​

Healthcare

The current methods of providing healthcare are not working. Many British Columbians do not have a personal doctor.

To reduce healthcare costs and improve service, the YPP will have nurse practitioners as the front line in health care. These highly trained professionals can meet the needs of 90% of health care patients while reducing costs and ensuring people who need to see a doctor have access to one.

The YPP will also support access to non-fee contraceptives and sexual health services to all British Columbians, make access to a Family Nurse Practitioner for British Columbians a priority, shift the focus of the healthcare system towards prevention by encouraging healthy lifestyles and choices, have electronic heath records created for those who want one, and remove all restrictions on the number of health care professionals that are allowed to be trained in BC each year.

With organ donations, the YPP will make British Columbia's system an ‘Opt-out’ system instead of an ‘Opt-in’ system.

Speedier delivery of essential health services

Allow more private care options, publicly funded. Fast-track certification of foreign-trained doctors. Make more efficient use of specialised equipment (ie. night shifts for diagnostic equipment when needed). Divert funds from abortion and gender re-assignment surgery to adoption, maternal care, palliative care, mental health.

23 Point Health Plan to Significantly Improve Health Services

The BC Citizens First Party announced that it proposes to completely abolish monthly MSP Premiums from 31st December 2017 for every BC Citizen who currently has to pay the MSP premiums themselves out of their own pocket without support from their employer or union etc. It made this announcement at the release of its 23 point Public Health Plan.