MODERNIZE: The $ 3.46 million short-term funding will keep five primary care clinics open on the southern island and support the recruitment of doctors, nurses and other health care workers as more long-term solutions are negotiated, the health ministry said Friday. Millions of short-term stabilization funding will be available at: Esquimalt Medical Clinic, Shoreline Medical Clinics in BrentwoodBay and Sidney, West Coast Family Medical Clinic in Sooke and West Saanich Medical Clinic. The funding will support more than 10 equivalent full-time GP positions in all five clinics by 31 December, with more than six registered nurse positions and related health resources.
A Cook Street Village clinic closed its doors, citing a lack of doctors. It is one of the three clinics that close this month in the area of the capital. Dr Ian Bridger, medical director for five family practice clinics in the area, said it was a difficult decision to close the Cook Street Village Medical Clinic, which serves about 5,000 patients as an emergency clinic. “Without a miracle, it will be permanent,” said Bridger. “We just closed and closed very reluctantly; we have run out of doctors who are willing to do this job.” About 900,000 people in BC, including about 100,000 on the southern island, are without a family doctor. The James Bay Medical Treatment Center in Victoria closed in late February to all but intricate care and vulnerable patients, Eagle Creek Medical Clinic at View Royal and Colwood Medical Treatment Center have both announced plans to close on April 15. , displacing thousands more patients. Some doctors leaving private primary care clinics report rising operating costs and a lack of alternative payment methods – such as salary and contracts – in the traditional service fee model, where the doctor charges the Medical Services Plan $ 31.62 per patient visit. The average doctor can pay about $ 85,000 to $ 100,000 a year in overhead. The medical director of Cook Street Village Medical Clinic said he would reopen the clinic tomorrow if he could find a doctor to work there. “These 5,000 [patients] now I have nowhere to go “. On Wednesday, Dr. Katharine Smart, head of the Canadian Medical Association, called on the federal government for a plan to address the “human health crisis” of doctors, nurses and other health professionals retiring or retiring. The Canadian Medical Association and other teams want a federal strategy, or even organization, to measure, monitor, train and retain health professionals to maintain Canada’s healthcare system. Smart said the initial cost to get the idea started would be just $ 2 million. The counties have called for a steady increase in federal health transportation so they can make more systemic improvements to their systems, urging the federal government to increase its share of health care costs to 35 percent from 22 percent – an increase of about $ 28 billion a year. BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau said the healthcare system was at a “critical juncture” and called on the provincial government to modernize it by funding more alternative payment models, providing “immediate relief” to existing primary care physicians and recruiting more doctors into family practice. “We need an integrated approach to supporting the doctors who provide this long-term care, and we need to know that when they retire, their clinic will continue to care for patients,” Furstenau told a news conference. Right now there is a generation that has never had the experience of having a family doctor or nurse, he said. “People have not had access to stable and quality health care for a long time, and it has reached a tipping point.” The provincial government has opened Emergency and Primary Care Clinics, which provide the care needed within about 48 hours to relieve stress from emergency hospitals and aim to connect some patients with GPs. Clinics offer doctors the opportunity to be paid or employed on a contract basis. BC Health Minister Adrian Dix said alternative payment arrangements with doctors have increased from $ 500 million in 2017-2018 to $ 758 million today. “We are working in this direction, we are working with the BC Doctors, we are working with family clinics to do it.” Many younger doctors want to be paid a salary or other form of unpaid payment, which makes it difficult to get them from family clinics that work on a pay-for-service model, he said. The county is working with doctors in the Victoria area on the issue, Dix said. [email protected]
