NDP promises more travel supports, protections for serious illness on campaign trail

Castlegar, B.C. -

David Eby promised to expand financial supports and job protections for sick British Columbians if he wins this month's provincial election, throwing barbs at his main opponent in the process.

The NDP leader announced the detail at the Castlegar airport as part of a day of campaigning in the southern Interior, where those facing the most serious health-care challenges have to travel hours for specialized care.

“In rural communities, things that people in bigger urban centres take for granted can sometimes be a big challenge,” said Eby.

As it stands now, patients needing to fly to larger centres for treatment can apply for financial support through the Travel Assistance Program. Eby is pledging to expand that scheme to allow mileage claims for those driving to treatment centres. He also wants to overhaul the program to provide up-front payments.

Under current legislation, workers taking up to eight days off of work due to serious illness are protected from being terminated, which Eby promises to expand to 27 weeks, in line with Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and the federal government's standards.

Eby went on to criticize the health-care plan of the BC Conservative Party, which includes increased usage of private, for-profit clinics to catch up on surgical wait lists. He also accused them of planning to slash the health-care budget, which leader John Rustad has emphatically denied. 

CTV News pointed out that under the NDP government, a growing – albeit small – number of surgeries and procedures are already taking place in private clinics, asking Eby if that would continue and if he was comfortable with the trend. 

“No, we’ve been buying private surgical clinics and putting them to work in the public sector,” he said. “It shouldn’t matter how much money you have, whether you’re able to access care, and simultaneously, when you have a shortage of health-care professionals, we don’t want to be competing with private clinics for those doctors and nurses that we need.”

Given the issue of ongoing emergency department closures, which have become fairly regular occurrences at a number of rural and remote hospitals, CTV News asked when British Columbians outside urban centres can expect service to stabilize and become more reliable. 

“We know this is an issue in other provinces as well, we have a shortage of the health-care professionals that we need,” Eby replied, reiterating his plan to train, provisionally accredit, and recruit more health-care workers. 

“Here in B.C., I believe that we’re going to be able to take this on just like we took on the family doctor issue, to provide people with family doctors, and we’re continuing to do that,” he went on to say. “The core to it is training and recognizing those professionals and putting those incentives in place to get them working in communities that are under-served throughout the province.”