B.C.'s Health Minister Adrian Dix says the provincial health-care system is working every day to get better amidst concerns about staffing shortages at hospitals heading into the long August weekend. 

"We are working on every hospital at any risk of all, every single day...because there is nowhere in Canada that has this level of effort," he said. 

Dix made these comments Wednesday (July 31) in Greater Victoria where he was unveiling a monitoring program that replicates some of the features of a long-term care home in private homes, allowing seniors to stay within their own walls. 

He was responding to a question about the availability of staff in hospitals across B.C. long weekends often mean longer than usual waiting times in emergency rooms and this summer has seen a raft of emergency room closures across the province, mainly in smaller communities of B.C.'s interior, but also in more populated parts of B.C. such as Greater Victoria and parts of the Lower Mainland, such as White Rock. 

B.C. United addressed the situation in a press release claiming that B.C. experienced 70 emergency room closures in Interior Health and Northern Health in July alone, while some communities like Williams Lake, Chetwynd and Prince Rupert have experienced double-digit closures in 2024 so far. 

Residents concerned about the state of health care in rural communities have also taken to the streets. Fort St. John saw a rally on Tuesday (July 30) and residents of Williams Lake were scheduled to protest on Friday (Aug. 2). 

Dan Davies, B.C United's MLA for Peace River North, who hosted the rally in Fort St. John, said British Columbians expect and deserve access to their local hospitals during medical emergencies.

"After eight years of broken NDP promises, our hospitals are in chaos and ERs are repeatedly closing, leading to devastating consequences for both patients and overburdened healthcare workers," he said in a press release after the rally. 

Several local mayors also participated in the Fort St. John rally, as municipal leaders like Merritt Mayor Michael Goetz have become increasingly vocal in criticizing Victoria to the point of demanding financial restitution for services rendered by municipal agencies in the absence of health care services. 

Various polls have identified healthcare among the top issues heading into this fall's provincial election and recent weeks have seen a raft of proposals from parts of the political opposition (B.C. United, Conservative Party of B.C.) to fix healthcare, especially in the rural areas. This said, these polls also point to the NDP as best able to address health care. 

Speaking Wednesday, Dix acknowledged the ER situation , but also pointed to ongoing efforts by his government to address the situation.

"This challenge of the summer, we expect to go into the year," he said. "We identified every shift that was a problem and the vast majority – 92 per cent of them – have been filled. We are working every day on this."

He added that government's Health Human Resources Plan includes the most attractive incentives for the recruitment of nurses in hard-to-fill areas. He also pointed to the new payment model for doctors. 

"We have more nurses than ever before, we have more doctors than ever before," Dix said. "That doesn't mean we have them everywhere. We need them all the time. So our commitment is 365 days, 24/7 and ... the teams are driving to make that happen and they are given every tool possible." 

Speaking to the Williams Lake Tribune on Friday (Aug. 2), Dix also said he understood the frustrations and anger of residents in communities like Williams Lake. 

Current challenges in the provincial health-care system are not unique to British Columbia. Other Canadian provinces and western countries at large are also struggling with a combination of rising health-care costs and staffing shortages in face of aging societies with expanding health-care needs and shrinking workforces, which have made it difficult to fill positions in all areas of the private economy and public services. 

It is also important to note that recent years have seen statistical improvements in several years of care, with the acknowledgement from government officials that more needs to be done. 

Black Press Media reached out B.C.'s Ministry of Health for confirmation and comment concerning the figures of ER closures cited by B.C. United, but did not receive a response by deadline. 

– with files from Monica Lamb-Yorksi