By Adam Berls

healthcare

170,000 British Columbians could be matched with family doctors

Apr 12, 2024 | 3:26 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — A big promise from Minister of Health Adrian Dix Thursday saying that 170,000 British Columbians could be matched with 800 family doctors that are accepting new patients. On April 17, the province will be introducing new improvements to the family doctor registry, aiming to speed up the matching and attachment of patients with primary care providers.

The doctor shortage has over 880,000 British Columbians without a family doctor and even with 170,000 being connected, there would still be over 710,000 people without access to a family doctor, leaving many to go to walk-in clinics or the emergency room.

Dr. Michelle Teo, who has been advocating for better models of healthcare in BC, says that the recent news is good but is the current model still working?

“We need to understand that now that family doctors are receiving a significant portion of their income from an hourly salary. Has that impacted the number of patients that they are seeing on any given day? And so another way to ask this from patients perspective is, are patients waiting longer to see their family doctor?” – Dr. Michelle Teo

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The province says that “an expanded team of 70 attachment coordinators linked with HealthLink BC will use the new digital tools that will make it faster and easier for them to connect people to a primary-care provider.”

According to the province, “about 1800 full-time equivalents health-care workers in primary care networks have been recruited, including doctors, nurse practitioners and allied health professionals.”

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X: @AdamBerls

Email: Adam.Berls@pattisonmedia.com