Horgan promises new urgent care centres
Accessing public health care system ‘a fundamental right in Canada,’ he says
New Democrat Leader John Horgan took aim on Monday at the Liberals’ failed pledge to match every British Columbian with a family doctor by promoting his party’s strategy to build urgentcare centres that use a team-based approach.
The centres would be open evenings and weekends and would allow patients to see the care provider that fits their needs, whether it’s a doctor, nurse practitioner or counsellor, Horgan said at a campaign stop ahead of the May 9 election.
Horgan said Christy Clark’s Liberals are letting down patients, who are waiting for hours at walkin clinics or emergency rooms. The NDP said 700,000 people don’t have a family doctor, with 200,000 still looking for one.
“It’s a fundamental right in Canada to access our public health care system. I will defend that to my last breath,” Horgan said.
The NDP leader made the promise in Burnaby, flanked by two local residents who can’t find a family doctor. Sky Belt said her friend visited walk-in clinics several times for pain and was told she had anxiety before she was finally diagnosed with cancer.
“Those months that she spent not having a family doctor has made her situation very critical,” Belt said.
The Liberals estimated in 2013 that 200,000 British Columbians didn’t have a family doctor. The governing party campaigned in 2010 and 2013 on providing a family doctor to every resident who wanted one by 2015, but conceded two years ago it would not meet its target.
The website for the “GP For Me” program says 178,000 people who did not have a family doctor were able to get one by 2016. But B.C.’s population also grew by 162,600 between 2013 and 2016.
Horgan’s promise was short on specifics, with no precise number of urgent-care centres an NDP government would build or a cost estimate.
Horgan also stopped for a photo opportunity at Burger Heaven in New Westminster, which is inviting customers to vote with their gut in a “bun-official” poll. As of Monday, the John Horgan burger was narrowly outselling those named for other party leaders in the historically NDP-held riding.
Later, Horgan visited Coquitlam’s Riverview Hospital, a shuttered mental-health institution, where he has promised to reopen some residential care facilities. The NDP would also establish a Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions.
The Liberal platform includes $2.7 billion for new hospitals, 500 additional long-term care beds and 5,500 more hip and knee surgeries.
Campaigning in Campbell River, Clark highlighted her government’s record in helping business.
Vancouver Island has been a stronghold for the NDP but Clark said the province has a successful economic record on the island because of Liberal policies.
Green party Leader Andrew Weaver, who is campaigning on a promise to “do politics differently,” unveiled his party’s platform on democratic reform in Victoria.
He said his party would establish a public watchdog to oversee government advertising and communications, block cabinet ministers from engaging in partisan fundraising, ban corporate, union and out-of-province donations, and place limits on individual contributions that would be in line with current federal limits.
Weaver also promised to introduce proportional representation.