MP Blaney Pressing Government To Support Rural Communities Facing Health Care Crises

North Island - Powell River MP Rachel Blaney is pressing the government to provide more support for rural communities that are facing a health care disaster.

Blaney brought up the health care crisis and called for the government to increase government health care transfers to provinces in her letter to the Minister of Health and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

In the letter, Blaney notes that since Spring 2022, hospitals throughout the North Island have struggled with staffing shortages which have forced them to periodically close emergency rooms, place temporary bans on walk-in patients, and limit hours of service.

The letter says, “staffing shortages are placing barriers on accessible health care in the region by forcing residents to travel long distances with risks to their immediate health and safety.”

Emergency rooms in Port Hardy, Alert Bay, and Port McNeill have experienced increasingly frequent unplanned rotating closures.

Additionally, Campbell River’s outpatient lab has closed to walk-in patients repeatedly due to staffing shortages.

In a release, Blaney points to a couple of instances of note - where one patient collapsed at a local emergency room after seeking medical help and finding the ER closed. Meanwhile, a pregnant woman reported being forced to give birth without her partner because she had to be transported to another community when she could not access medical care. Blaney says patients are being forced to travel hours to get help, putting additional strain on the few hospitals with emergency rooms that remain open, and increasing the risk to their own health.

Blaney noted that the government does not have a plan to recruit and retain immigrant health care workers in rural and remote regions, such as the North Island – Powell River and says she is urging the Ministers to remember that rural areas require different recruitment and retention solutions than urban centres.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was inviting the premiers to Ottawa next month to discuss the next steps.

The province’s want health care transfers from the federal government increased to 35-percent, from the current 22 percent.

The federal government has said any new money would have to be earmarked for specific reasons.