Healthcare issues dominated an all-candidates forum last Friday at the Osoyoos Seniors’ Centre and they highlighted the philosophical differences between the B.C. Liberals and the NDP.
Incumbent MLA Linda Larson of the B.C. Liberals and NDP candidate Colleen Ross went head to head with each other and with some members of the audience.
It’s understandable that seniors are especially concerned about availability of health services. Hopefully though, healthcare will be a major issue not only for seniors in the May 9 provincial election.
It comes down to whether we see a healthy population as a wise investment or as a drain on revenues, whether society as a whole should pay the bill, or whether a portion should be paid by the sick.
We must decide whether preventive care and a holistic approach make sense, or whether it is better to treat just the most serious cases after the fact.
The recent decision by Osoyoos resident and longtime Liberal Gaye Horn to go public about how B.C.’s healthcare system failed her husband Lee has added to this discussion.
Lee has waited in excruciating pain for almost three years to have hip replacement surgery.
Despite her Liberal roots and her husband’s reluctance to seek the limelight, Gaye decided to turn in desperation to the NDP to raise the issue in the B.C. Legislature.
NDP Health Critic Judy Darcy asked Health Minister Terry Lake if he found it “acceptable that Lee has to wait almost three years in excruciating pain to get his hip surgery.”
Lake’s response offered not the slightest hint of empathy.
He blamed the problem on a growing and aging population, while acknowledging that in some parts of the province, wait times can be unacceptable for MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) or surgery.
“We are working very hard to get to the people that have waited the longest,” Lake told her, noting the government provided additional funding for surgeries last year.
It’s true that B.C. has a higher median age than the Prairie provinces and it’s become a retirement mecca for many.
But we’re not alone and the Atlantic provinces and Quebec all have comparable or even older populations.
The answer, “We’re working on it,” was also one Larson gave a lot at the all-candidates meetings when asked about other health issues, even though the B.C. Liberals have been in power since 2001 and have had 16 years to “work on it.”
Larson correctly pointed out that healthcare costs a lot of money and one way or another taxpayers will have to pay for it.
Indeed, B.C.’s health spending in 2016-17 is nearly $18 billion, making this, by far, the largest slice of the provincial budget.
But it’s also true that there is widespread waste in the system and B.C. has been slow to adopt some innovations used more extensively in other provinces.
It’s possible to cut costs and still improve services.
Teams of doctors and other health professionals operating under one roof and use of nurse practitioners instead of doctors for more routine health problems are ideas that NDP candidate Ross and her party are calling for.
Some of the B.C. Liberal government’s healthcare decisions appear to be ideological.
B.C. has been alone among provinces in charging a flat-rate MSP instead of using progressive taxes in which those with higher incomes pay more.
After years of increasing the MSP, the Liberals have waited until the eve of this election to announce they are finally phasing premiums out.
B.C. also rejects universal provincially funded flu vaccination, which most other provinces do as a means of reducing the number of flu carriers in the population. B.C.’s approach is penny wise and dollar foolish.
Any discussion of healthcare will be ideological to a degree. But there are solutions that can and should be supported across party lines.
Hopefully voters will hold the B.C. Liberals to account for this province’s healthcare system of the past 16 years.
And hopefully they’ll demand specific answers about what the NDP would do differently.
