'It's a big concern': Private delivery of public health care grows yet again in B.C.
'It's a big concern': Private delivery of public health care grows yet again in B.C.
B.C.’s Ministry of Health is continuing its multi-year trend of paying millions more dollars each year to private surgical centres for the delivery of public health care, CTV News has learned.
While the trend started with the BC Liberals, when the New Democrats took power they continued outsourcing surgeries to for-profit clinics in order to clear backlogs: In the 2017-18 fiscal year, 2.9 per cent of all surgeries in B.C. were performed under private contract. This proportion grew to 5 per cent in the 2021-22 fiscal year.
That year, $33.5 million from taxpayers went to for-profit private clinics, compared to $27.2 million the previous fiscal year, a 23-per-cent surge.
CTV News raised the issue with the health minister on Wednesday, asking why he wasn’t being more transparent about the growth in private delivery of public health care.
“When I announced the surgical renewal plan, I said it was all hands on deck, that we'd cancelled and delayed tens of thousands of surgeries (due to COVID-19 waves) and we were going to do everything we could to get people the surgeries we need,” said Dix. “We delivered on that in the pandemic, reducing wait times.”
That claim is disputed by the province’s orthopedic surgeons, who say patients are waiting longer than they did before the pandemic. Many have stopped seeing new patients at all, raising further questions about the accuracy of the wait-list figures.
A NATIONAL TREND
The Ministry of Health pointed out that contracted surgeries represent a small number relative to overall surgeries (16,777 out of 338,348 last year) and a miniscule portion of the provincial health budget, emphasizing the patients do not pay anything, meaning the government is “abiding by the principles of Canada’s universal health-care system defined by the Canada Health Act.”
The governments of Ontario and Alberta have been blunt and unapologetic about their use of private surgical centres to catch up on surgical backlogs, constantly reiterating that there is no cost to the patient.
“To be clear, when we talk about private surgery, just as we talk about how primary care offices are effectively privately held, it's public insurance,” said Dix of the payment system. “We strongly support public health care and we’ve expanded public surgeries.”
In the 2018-19 fiscal year, there were 331,163 surgeries performed in the province of British Columbia and in 2021-22 that has grown to 338,348, so there are more overall. While most surgeries contracted to private surgical centres are ophthalmological, with two-thirds done outside public hospitals, more orthopedic surgeries are also taking place outside the health authority system: 1,301 in 2020-21 compared to 1,525 the following year.
HARMFUL IN THE LONG RUN?
Critics argue the for-profit delivery of health care hurts everyone in the long term because it continually undermines the public system, where the most complex, labour-intensive procedures take place and also require the most recovery time; for example, full joint replacements and cardiac procedures of all kinds.
“When you’re trying to have the same workforce in two places at once, it can really lead to shortages in your public system, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing today,” said Simon Fraser University health policy researcher Andrew Longhurst.
He pointed out private surgical centres offer better pay and working conditions, without requirements for overtime and shifts on evenings and weekends.
“That’s why it’s a big concern, relying on and increasing the role of private clinics,” said Longhurst. “You tend to shift your resources out of the public system, and then, in turn, it becomes harder to staff up your public system.”
Dix said he's comfortable with his approach because it’s such a small percentage and he’s mindful of the “silver tsunami” of aging baby boomers who’ll need joint replacements and cataract surgeries in growing numbers.
“We're committed to the public system,” he insisted. “You bet we are, and we're also committed to providing people the surgeries they need when they need them.”
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Ottawa Thursday evening for a whirlwind 27-hour visit expected to focus on both the friendly and thorny aspects of the Canada-U.S. relationship, including protectionism and migration on both sides of the border.
Canada and the United States are negotiating a deal that could see asylum seekers turned back at irregular border crossings across the border, including Roxham Road in Quebec.
Amid renewed questions over the pervasiveness of alleged interference by China in Canadian elections and affairs broadly, opposition MPs voted Thursday afternoon to affirm a parliamentary committee's call for the federal government to strike a public inquiry.
An asteroid discovered just last week will pass closer to the Earth than the orbit of the moon this weekend, an occurrence so rare it happens only once in a decade, according to NASA.
The number of Canadians receiving employment insurance benefits are at record lows and down 44 per cent from last year, new figures from Statistics Canada show.
Two Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) sisters from Montreal are on a mission that is close to their hearts: to save their ancestors' first language by developing video games young and old can play.
Zellers has opened the first of 25 new locations within Hudson's Bay stores across the country. The Canadian retail chain launched 12 stores in Ontario and Alberta Thursday, along with a new e-commerce website.
Embattled South Carolina Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom will resign next month after a US$3.5 billion accounting error in the year-end financial report he oversaw.
A Victoria man’s life of crime has turned into one of survival, hope and advocacy amid ongoing conversations in the community about how best to tackle public safety matters.
An Ontario man said he was shocked when his truck was stolen not once but twice, and the second time it was taken he was surprised to discover he was no longer covered for theft.
For the first time, the owner of a building in Old Montreal has responded to questions about the fire — through his lawyer — addressing allegations that the building was unsafe.
Zafar Mahmood was still waiting on Thursday to hear whether his 32-year-old daughter was among the four people whose bodies have been pulled from the rubble of an Old Montreal building that caught fire last week.
Manitoba First Nation police have arrested a man connected with a shooting on March 19 on Long Plain First Nation that resulted in the community going on lockdown.
Manitoba’s labour force is growing at a rate to supply enough workers for available positions into 2026, according to the province’s labour market outlook.
An alleged victim of a former staff member of Legacy Christian Academy can now be identified after she successfully petitioned in court to have a publication ban lifted.
In the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s provincial budget, school divisions in Saskatchewan were expecting funding levels to increase, with the province repeatedly touting its $1 billion surplus.
A recent report from the province’s privacy commissioner says the Métis Addictions Council of Saskatchewan Inc. (MACSI) failed to take appropriate steps after patient treatment files were discovered in a recycling bin.
The Tim Houston PC government remains firm in their promise they'll fix the health-care system by spending more taxpayer money on health than any previous government before.
The rate of snow and rain falling in the Maritimes will pick up late Thursday afternoon into evening as a weather system makes its way across the region.
The new provincial budget features items specific to southwestern Ontario, including a new English public elementary school in London, Ont. that will serve 556 students and include 88 licensed childcare spaces.
A young Strathroy, Ont. man believes there's a promising way forward in the effort to fight his disease. But, he's being told, right now, that path isn't open to him. Friends and family are stepping up to try and make a case for Kyle McPhee to receive immunotherapy treatments.
The co-owners of a new liquidation store in North Bay, Samuel Quesnel and Chloé Boivenue, say they want to bring a treasure hunt shopping experience to the city.
The resurrection of Zellers is officially underway with the Cambridge location opening its doors to eager shoppers who lined up ahead of the store's official reopening.
