Speak Up for Primary Health Care Solutions
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
Paov --
Band-aid solutions are being promoted over what patients and
primary health care providers actually need.
‘Situation
Critical’ - Tomorrow, September 20th, 2022 at
6pm the CBC will be hosting a Virtual Town Hall on the crisis
in health care. The discussion will address “access to doctors, what's
not working and what needs to change.” Speakers include: Adrian Dix,
Minister of Health, BC; Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, President of Doctors of
BC and Dr. Rita McCracken, family physician and UBC assistant
professor and primary care researcher.
If informed
supporters and community partners call or email in to the Virtual Town
Hall we can promote real solutions to the Primary Health Care
crisis. CBC email
and call-in details here
BC is experiencing a
Primary Health Care access crisis, which is continually attributed to
a family physician shortage. However, BC currently has more family
physicians per capita than at any other time. The actual crisis is
that our current Primary Health Care model is unsustainable for health
care practitioners to work in. Band-aid solutions like one-time
injections of money and increasing investments in... walk-in clinic style
care will not increase the access to comprehensive, longitudinal
team-based primary health care that BC residents deeply need.
To the dissatisfaction of many family physicians, policy analysts
and public health care advocates, Doctors of BC (formally known as the
British Columbia Medical Association) continually focuses on MD pay as
the only solution and resists the structural changes needed. In fact,
BC has a long history of focusing on MD pay alone, including through
large investments, incentives and changes to the fee-for-service
payment model. The evidence over the past 20 years shows that these
payment reforms did not result in increases to primary care visits or
continuity of care for patients and instead have likely driven
inequities in access.
We can’t let the organization Doctors of
BC dominate this conversation. We are asking our partners and
supporters to call in or send a question by email
and take back the conversation.
THE SOLUTIONS:
Infrastructure Investment and Global
Funding: We need massive system infrastructure investments
that fund primary care in the same way we fund hospitals or schools.
For this we need GLOBAL FUNDING to clinics so that a clinic’s
building, utilities, IT systems and staffing are paid for directly by
the government and not via physician payments as is now the case.
Global funding would offer alternative payment plan options to
physicians and other health care professionals who are willing to
commit to longitudinal, community-based primary care that include
sick/vacation pay, parental leave and team supports.
This would:
- allow patients to find primary care in their area in the same way they would find a school for their child
- provide communities with access to physicians who can see patients for longer than the standard fee-for-service 10-minute visit
- allow patients to have continued access to primary health care providers who know their health history
- strengthen and build team-based care
- allow physicians and other health professionals to take holidays, get time off or retire more easily
- remove or minimize the problem of physicians struggling with the cost of overhead
Community Health Centres: These are community-governed, non-profit primary health care organizations that provide integrated health care and social services with a focus on social determinants of health. The government should recommit to its pre-2017 plan to establish at least one Community Health Centre per year in each health authority.
Community Health Centres provide:
- team-based interprofessional primary health care that includes a range of health care and social service providers
- more responsive care to the patients/members they serve through community-governance models
- integrated medical care, mental health care, nutritional education programs, substance use services, health promotion, chronic disease management programs, and multi-cultural and Indigenous programming
- comprehensive services that address the social determinants of health and prevent acute illness among groups who are more likely to experience poor health and suffer from chronic conditions
- better access to health and community services in rural communities
Situation Critical: virtual Town Hall Tomorrow, September 20 at 6 p.m. PT about the health care crisis in BC. Email and call-in details here
In attendance will be:
- Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, President of Doctors of BC
- Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, BC
- Rita McCracken, family physician and UBC assistant professor and primary care researcher
Ayendri, BC Health Coalition
http://www.bchealthcoalition.ca/
British Columbia Health Coalition · 3102 Main St, 302,
Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories, BC V5T 3G7, Canada
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