The Arrogant Worms Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 (edited) 2 hours ago, Johngould21 said: Only if you're an out of Province patient. I'm not sure if all of you know this, but BC Medical only covers us here in BC. So, if you travel across the Country and go into a clinic or hospital make sure you have out of Province travel insurance. Wrong...BC Medical covered my friends visit to the walk in Clinic in Saskatoon. Edited March 10 by The Arrogant Worms 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurn Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/the-truth-about-canada-s-debt-compared-to-other-countries/ss-AA1g2Oul?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=1831d3e5671949078bcad245e42a0551&ei=10 -------------------- countries worse off than Canada's 113% USA debt to gdp 129% Italy 145% Singapore 160% Japan 264% Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Long Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 16 hours ago, The Arrogant Worms said: Wrong...BC Medical covered my friends visit to the walk in Clinic in Saskatoon. it varies a lot: https://www.rbcinsurance.com/en-ca/advice-learning/travel-insurance/understanding-your-out-of-province-government-medical-coverage/#:~:text=Details%3A AHCIP provides coverage for,is no cost to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Arrogant Worms Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 23 hours ago, Ricky Ravioli said: And? That's awesome he has a doctor. Doesn't for a second mean they are easy to get. There are soooo many people here that have been on waitlists for years trying to get a family doctor. It's not that easy here Try this..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 7 minutes ago, The Arrogant Worms said: Try this..... Estimated that 25% of the people in my town have no family doctor. How difficult would it be that Interior Health would maintain a list? I suspect they don’t for political reasons. How much this cost society should be a bigger concern than it appears to me. How long do people wait? I met a guy the other day who said he was going on 8 years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Elias Pettersson Posted March 10 Popular Post Share Posted March 10 45 minutes ago, Boudrias said: Estimated that 25% of the people in my town have no family doctor. How difficult would it be that Interior Health would maintain a list? I suspect they don’t for political reasons. How much this cost society should be a bigger concern than it appears to me. How long do people wait? I met a guy the other day who said he was going on 8 years. Yes, but having no doctor is free in Canada. I mean it's not like you have to pay for one... FYI, my doctor retired years ago. He closed his practice. I was given all of my medical records via email and was told to find a new doctor. I couldn't find anyone that would take me on. I was going to walk in clinics for awhile just to get a prescription. Finally, I called my mother's doctor. My mom had just recently passed away and so her doctor agreed to take me on. This is the only reason why I have a family doctor right now. FYI, I live in Vancouver, not on the Island. And no, I wasn't interested in moving my entire life just so I could have a family doctor. I was told we have the best healthcare system in the world, so no reason to upend my entire life to have a doctor right? 1 1 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Arrogant Worms Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elias Pettersson Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 Almost a million B.C. residents have no family doctor. Many blame the province's fee-for-service system | CBC News I thought this was interesting since we are talking about family doctors. I guess over a million people have to move and find a new place to live... Almost a million B.C. residents have no family doctor. Many blame the province's fee-for-service system Camille Currie has less than a year of battery life on her pacemaker and no family doctor. The Greater Victoria resident and mother of two says she also has bleeding and connective-tissue disorders that would make post-op care challenging when she does get the battery replaced. If she has trouble healing, she is afraid she will have to line up at an urgent and primary care centre (UPCC). Currie also says both her children have a rare auto-inflammatory disorder. Yet she and her family are among almost a million British Columbians without a family doctor. According to the B.C. College of Family Physicians, only 80 per cent of residents in the Capital Regional District have one, compared to 84 per cent of people provincewide. According to Canadian tech company Medimap, which publishes online wait-times for walk-in clinics, B.C. residents wait an average of 58 minutes at walk-in clinics — more than double the national average. Victoria had the longest average wait time in the country at more than 2½ hours. CBC spoke to patients, doctors and other people impacted by the shortage for a special series titled "A Crisis in Care: The Family Doctor Shortage in Greater Victoria" to examine the roots of the problem, and one issue that came up multiple times was B.C.'s fee-for-service system. Current system leading to doctor burnout Fee-for-service is a system of care that pays doctors for each office visit. People familiar with how it works say the high volume of administrative work needed for doctors to get payment — combined with the low amount of take-home pay it generates — is discouraging doctors from practising family medicine, and that's created a dire need for family physicians and a reliance on emergency rooms and clinics. "B.C. is not providing us with universal health care," said Currie on CBC's All Points West on Tuesday. Dr. Adrian Yee, a hematologist in Victoria, said the Urgent and Primary Care Centre (UPCC) system is failing many of his elderly patients, who come to him with medical conditions that have worsened while they waited to see a primary care provider. Greater Victoria physician Jennifer Lush is trying, though. Lush has been a family doctor for 20 years and understands why others would choose not to be. Most doctors are paid about $30 per patient visit and, from that, Lush pays for staff, medical equipment and office space. She says she works 70-hour weeks and struggles with work-life balance. Half the hours Lush puts in are unpaid, she says, because they are spent doing paperwork. "The minute my kids are tucked in bed, I'm pulling out my computer and I start charting. Often I will chart until two or three in the morning," Lush told CBC's On The Island on Tuesday. Comparable to minimum wage A report published in the Canadian Family Physician Journal in November 2021 found up-and-coming doctors are choosing more hospital-based work and specialized practice rather than family medicine — in part because they're worried about the consequences of B.C.'s fee-for-service model on work-life balance. Alicia Pawluk became a doctor in 2018 and does hospital-based work alongside treating patients at the Cool Aid Community Health Centre in Victoria. She says under the current system, the take-home income of a family doctor is comparable to minimum wage. "The average physician graduates with about $200,000 of debt. Minimum wage is not going to be able to cover the sort of payments that we need to make," said Pawluk. In May 2020, the College of Family Physicians of Canada called for alternative funding models to replace the fee-for-service method in order to recruit and retain more family doctors. B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said connecting people with a family doctor has been his "highest priority" since entering the role in 2017. To reduce the administrative burden on doctors, and help people who don't have one, Dix's ministry invested in UPCCs to provide same-day, urgent, non-emergency support. He said the province is also increasing the use of alternative payment methods to attract more family physicians. "The will of doctors and others to work with us to reform and make the system better is there, and we need to do so," Dix told CBC's On The Island on Thursday. 'I did not receive that care until too late' Change can't come soon enough for Joy Williamson, who has been without a doctor for eight years. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, she believes it would have been caught sooner if she had had one. "I did not receive that care until too late," said Williamson, who explained that the cancer had travelled to her lymph nodes by the time it was detected and she needed to have her whole breast removed instead of a lumpectomy. Joy Williamson believes that not having a family doctor delayed her breast cancer diagnosis. The day before her surgery, Williamson was worried she had a blood infection and says she drove around Greater Victoria with her husband and two kids for hours looking for a UPCC that was not full. She ended up waiting five hours in emergency for a diagnosis. Currie hears how frustrating that is firsthand. She created B.C. Health Care Matters, a website where patients can petition for change and share their stories. Those stories include parents who waited eight hours in emergency with sick kids, and a senior couple with mobility issues who lined up for hours, several days in a row, at a UPCC that was constantly full. As time ticks closer to Currie's own pending surgery, her own fear grows. "This pacemaker is going to run out and I can only pray that I will be able to trust the system," she said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elias Pettersson Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 @Ricky Ravioli You aren't lying A crisis in care: CBC series examines Victoria's family doctor shortage | CBC News A crisis in care: CBC series examines Victoria's family doctor shortage Southern Vancouver Island has some of longest walk-in clinic waits in the province and country Patients in the greater Victoria area are increasingly frustrated by a lack of family doctors. Over the past year, at least three doctors have left urgent and primary care centres and three clinics have closed, leaving hundreds of people without primary care. According to the B.C. College of Family Physicians, only 80 per cent of residents in the Capital Regional District have one, compared to 84 per cent of people provincewide, while a report from the Canadian tech company Medimap found Victoria walk-in clinics have the longest wait time in the country, at more than 2½ hours. CBC Victoria dove into the reasons behind this crisis, its impacts and some possible solutions in a special weeklong series, A Crisis in Care: The Family Doctor Shortage in Greater Victoria, which you can find in the segments below. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post 4petesake Posted March 11 Popular Post Share Posted March 11 23 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said: @Ricky Ravioli You aren't lying A crisis in care: CBC series examines Victoria's family doctor shortage | CBC News A crisis in care: CBC series examines Victoria's family doctor shortage Southern Vancouver Island has some of longest walk-in clinic waits in the province and country Patients in the greater Victoria area are increasingly frustrated by a lack of family doctors. Over the past year, at least three doctors have left urgent and primary care centres and three clinics have closed, leaving hundreds of people without primary care. According to the B.C. College of Family Physicians, only 80 per cent of residents in the Capital Regional District have one, compared to 84 per cent of people provincewide, while a report from the Canadian tech company Medimap found Victoria walk-in clinics have the longest wait time in the country, at more than 2½ hours. CBC Victoria dove into the reasons behind this crisis, its impacts and some possible solutions in a special weeklong series, A Crisis in Care: The Family Doctor Shortage in Greater Victoria, which you can find in the segments below. Both of these articles are from April 2022. Here is one from Feb 16/24 which says that the number of people without doctors has been reduced to 220,000. That’s still too many but a notable improvement. https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-has-gained-708-family-doctors-over-the-last-year-here-s-where-they-re-working-1.6772815 That's an increase of 10 per cent, and certainly cause for celebration in a province where, as of 2022, nearly a million people were without a family doctor. In his update last week, Dix acknowledged there were roughly 220,000 people in B.C. who had requested a family doctor and still don't have one. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Long Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 1 hour ago, Boudrias said: Estimated that 25% of the people in my town have no family doctor. How difficult would it be that Interior Health would maintain a list? I suspect they don’t for political reasons. How much this cost society should be a bigger concern than it appears to me. How long do people wait? I met a guy the other day who said he was going on 8 years. It's a tough reality that it's hard to get docs to rural areas. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Arrogant Worms Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 39 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said: @Ricky Ravioli You aren't lying A crisis in care: CBC series examines Victoria's family doctor shortage | CBC News A crisis in care: CBC series examines Victoria's family doctor shortage Southern Vancouver Island has some of longest walk-in clinic waits in the province and country Patients in the greater Victoria area are increasingly frustrated by a lack of family doctors. Over the past year, at least three doctors have left urgent and primary care centres and three clinics have closed, leaving hundreds of people without primary care. According to the B.C. College of Family Physicians, only 80 per cent of residents in the Capital Regional District have one, compared to 84 per cent of people provincewide, while a report from the Canadian tech company Medimap found Victoria walk-in clinics have the longest wait time in the country, at more than 2½ hours. CBC Victoria dove into the reasons behind this crisis, its impacts and some possible solutions in a special weeklong series, A Crisis in Care: The Family Doctor Shortage in Greater Victoria, which you can find in the segments below. Why don;t you move to the USA? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Elias Pettersson Posted March 11 Popular Post Share Posted March 11 (edited) 8 minutes ago, The Arrogant Worms said: Why don;t you move to the USA? Why would I need to move to the USA? Is that what the answer is to people who question things that are happening in Canada? Up until a few months ago, we had over a million people in BC without a family doctor. And your retort is to move to the USA versus trying to fix the problem? Unbelievable... Edited March 11 by Elias Pettersson 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AatuD2 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 15 minutes ago, The Arrogant Worms said: Why don;t you move to the USA? What a childish thing to say. Shortage of family doctors has been well documented and has been an ongoing issue. It should be solved and the root causes should be examined. In other news, one of the bright up and coming candidates in Ontario just won a landslide by-election. Jamil Jivani is not afraid to approach taboo subjects and has been representing people that feel extremely disenchanted with today's left. He got 57% of the vote, while the Liberal came in a distant second at 23% of the vote... NDP candidate got around 10% from what I remember. 1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bishopshodan Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 (edited) 1 hour ago, The Arrogant Worms said: Why don;t you move to the USA? Once his prediction of the cons winning the next election comes true, he will think Canada is great again. Edited March 11 by bishopshodan 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AatuD2 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elias Pettersson Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 9 minutes ago, AatuD2 said: What a childish thing to say. Shortage of family doctors has been well documented and has been an ongoing issue. It should be solved and the root causes should be examined. In other news, one of the bright up and coming candidates in Ontario just won a landslide by-election. Jamil Jivani is not afraid to approach taboo subjects and has been representing people that feel extremely disenchanted with today's left. He got 57% of the vote, while the Liberal came in a distant second at 23% of the vote... NDP candidate got around 10% from what I remember. Pete posted the most recent info from February 16, 2024 which I did not see. As of July 5, 2023 there were still 895,000 people in BC without a family doctor. So, it is a credit to the BC government to get that number down to 220,000 in just a few months. We still have 220,000 people without a family doctor, so there is still some work to do. The fact that some people on the left feel the best response to this issue is to tell the poster to move is quite disturbing to say the least. Questioning what is happening in Canada is now grounds for being ridiculed and insulted. And they wonder why Trudeau's poll numbers are tanking.... 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AatuD2 Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 3 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said: Pete posted the most recent info from February 16, 2024 which I did not see. As of July 5, 2023 there were still 895,000 people in BC without a family doctor. So, it is a credit to the BC government to get that number down to 220,000 in just a few months. We still have 220,000 people without a family doctor, so there is still some work to do. The fact that some people on the left feel the best response to this issue is to tell the poster to move is quite disturbing to say the least. Questioning what is happening in Canada is now grounds for being ridiculed and insulted. And they wonder why Trudeau's poll numbers are tanking.... That's this forum's MO: attack people that you don't agree with. It's why I only pop my head in the off-topic forum once every couple of months. There's absolutely nothing insightful that I gain out of this, US politics, or the Ukraine conversations. Trudeau's gonna be ousted because his identity politics and acting has run it's course. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4petesake Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 30 minutes ago, Elias Pettersson said: Why would I need to move to the USA? Is that what the answer is to people who question things that are happening in Canada? Up until a few months ago, we had over a million people in BC without a family doctor. And your retort is to move to the USA versus trying to fix the problem? Unbelievable... For sure we need to keep working on the problem. I came within inches of losing my access to a doctor when our previous doctor retired. My wife was making her appointment with the new doctor and asked about me. They had changed computer systems 12 years previously and because I hadn’t been in since I had been dropped and the new doctor wasn’t accepting any new patients yet. Luckily we still had paperwork (my wife saves everything) to prove I had been a patient so they reluctantly accepted me in the end. It took my brother and SIL 6 months to find a doctor in Kelowna after theirs retired. Things are better but still much work to do. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bishopshodan Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 Aside from how terribly awful this forum is, we do need more frontline services in BC. Needs way way more support. Its very poor for one of the best places to live on the planet. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 29 minutes ago, AatuD2 said: That's this forum's MO: attack people that you don't agree with. It's why I only pop my head in the off-topic forum once every couple of months. There's absolutely nothing insightful that I gain out of this, US politics, or the Ukraine conversations. Trudeau's gonna be ousted because his identity politics and acting has run it's course. Nope. Cons having Poopoo as their leader gives them no chance because he stinks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satchmo Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 36 minutes ago, AatuD2 said: That's this forum's MO: attack people that you don't agree with. It's why I only pop my head in the off-topic forum once every couple of months. There's absolutely nothing insightful that I gain out of this, US politics, or the Ukraine conversations. Trudeau's gonna be ousted because his identity politics and acting has run it's course. Ever wonder if that's just because most people don't agree with your opinions on either of the two subjects you mention? If they strongly disagree that can be taken as an attack. That said, I happen to agree that calling for people to move is perhaps not the best suggestion. IMHO we have a doctor shortage that is causing problems. Things are improving though. We can fault the BC government for a slow start to action but it can't be denied they are now acting. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boudrias Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 2 hours ago, Bob Long said: It's a tough reality that it's hard to get docs to rural areas. Very true. Of my son’s dental grad class of 36, only 2 went to rural practice. My take on the doctors we have here is that they came for the lifestyle. At one time we had a steady stream of South Africans. The other aspect is that in larger centres the GP’s can keep their particular fields of interest updated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kootenay Gold Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 1 hour ago, Boudrias said: Very true. Of my son’s dental grad class of 36, only 2 went to rural practice. My take on the doctors we have here is that they came for the lifestyle. At one time we had a steady stream of South Africans. The other aspect is that in larger centres the GP’s can keep their particular fields of interest updated. 1 hour ago, Boudrias said: At one time we had a steady stream of South Africans. Bouds; I hope that one particular South African is still practising in your town. He is probably the best family doctor that I have had. He was an anesthesiologist as well as a surgeon back in S. Africa and really takes the time to get to the root of any medical problems a person is having. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Long Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 2 hours ago, Boudrias said: Very true. Of my son’s dental grad class of 36, only 2 went to rural practice. My take on the doctors we have here is that they came for the lifestyle. At one time we had a steady stream of South Africans. The other aspect is that in larger centres the GP’s can keep their particular fields of interest updated. A lot of SA folks ended up in Saskatchewan as well . This is a tough problem to solve. Online access should help somewhat, but it's really not being deployed like it could be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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