B.C. mayors frustrated as health minister blames Queen's death for non-announcement

A much-anticipated panel titled “Re-envisioning health care in B.C.” has underwhelmed the province’s municipal leaders, who’d expected more action to address the growing health-care crisis. 

Health Minister Adrian Dix drew hundreds of attendees at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities conference Tuesday to hear him discuss health-care solutions, but they were disappointed he only reiterated COVID-19 recovery measures and big-picture talking points about a future oriented around team-based medicine.

Some two dozen mayors, councillors and other delegates lined up to ask him questions at the end of the session, but were frustrated and disappointed he only heard a handful of them.

Before his speech, CTV News spoke with three members of a newly formed coalition of small town mayors, who were blunt in their description of a provincial government moving at a glacial pace to address critical staffing shortages already costing lives. 

“The time for planning and consultation and reports and meetings is over,” said Ashcroft Mayor Barbara Roden. “I’ve been sitting in health-care planning meetings for my entire four years as mayor…talk minus action equals zero.”

The mayor of Clearwater, who noted his community’s emergency department has faced 60 overnight closures so far this year, is similarly tired of the inaction.

“My most often used emoji is the eye-roll emoji and it’s completely for this reason,” said Merlin Blackwell, describing a dysfunctional health-care system where government agencies don’t communicate with each other. “Adrian Dix and the Health Ministry are a top-down organization.”

Port McNeill’s mayor pointed out that even communities not currently experiencing long waits for ambulances and hospital closures should expect that in the future.

“It’s going to take a big cheque, but just writing a cheque for the sake of writing it isn’t going to help the problem,” said Gaby Wickstrom. “If you’re going to throw money at it, I want to see a plan and how you feel those dollars (are) going to help.”

MAYORS CONFRONTING A PROVINCIAL ISSUE

With ambulance service the subject of several resolutions at the UBCM conference, the union representing B.C.’s ambulance paramedics and dispatchers has been inundated with feedback from alarmed civic leaders.

“Although it’s not in their jurisdiction, it impacts their residents and their constituents,” noted Troy Clifford of the provincial ambulance service.

He also pointed out that increasing paramedic positions, up to 40 per cent of which are unstaffed due to illness on any given day, won’t solve the problem because emergency department diversions affect them, too.

“It puts additional travel time so those ambulances are out of their communities longer periods of time, so that puts the communities at risk,” said Clifford.

THE MINISTER RESPONDS

The health minister addressed journalists after the event, insisting that his goal in speaking on the panel was to have a dialogue.

“It certainly wasn’t my intent today to come here and make this a set-piece for my announcements — it was to listen to people, to engage in discussion (around) what we’re doing to resolve those problems,” said Dix, insisting a lot of work is going on behind the scenes.

When CTV News suggested he’d missed an opportunity to show civic leaders he was addressing their concerns with tangible evidence of that, he said the government’s mourning period for The Queen played a role.

“In the case, specifically, of ambulances we likely would’ve done that in advance or around the conference, but for the very sad passing of The Queen,” he said. “We’ll make some moves on ambulance paramedics soon that you’ll see.”