Dawson Creek uses road budget to cover provincial healthcare gap

Written By Rob Shaw
Published

The doctor shortage, emergency room closures and healthcare crisis is so bad in B.C.’s Peace Region that the City of Dawson Creek is using money from the province, earmarked for things like road and sewer upgrades, to instead purchase a doctor’s office.

The municipality stepped up to buy the Eljen Medical Clinic, across the street from Dawson Creek’s hospital, out of fear it was up for sale and might otherwise be shuttered.

“Some of the doctors in Dawson Creek came to us and said we are worried when it goes to the market potentially it could get sold for anything,” Mayor Darcy Dober said in an interview.

“Their fear was we’d lose healthcare spaces or doctors spaces in our community. They asked if there was a way the city could look at purchasing it.”

To finance the deal, the city dipped into $4.1 million it had been given by the BC NDP government out of last year’s $1-billion Growing Communities Fund. 

The intention from the province was municipalities could use that money to upgrade neglected infrastructure projects like water and sewer systems, roads, parks and community services. But Dawson Creek liked the idea of instead directing some of it (the actual purchase price has not been disclosed) to the clinic purchase, so that it would not have to tap local taxpayers for the cost.

“Health care is not a municipality’s, or local government’s, side of the street, so to say, but really it spoke volumes to some of the struggles we are having,” said Dober.

Rural ER closures leave residents scrambling

Across B.C.’s north, healthcare has become one of, if not the, hottest topic leading into the fall provincial election.

It comes amid a spate of ER closures in Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Chetwynd and Fort Nelson in recent weeks, due to a shortage of nurses and doctors.

And it’s not just the north. In the interior, ERs in Clearwater, Kaslo, Oliver, Merritt, Lillooet, Nicola Valley and Williams Lake, have all been down in recent weeks, many at the same time, leaving residents confused and scrambling.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said healthcare facilities are facing recruitment, retention and burnout challenges. In the case of at least two ERs, last-minute sick calls by staff came one hour before their shifts were set to start and could not be filled in time, said Dix.

Health Minister Adrian Dix fields questions from B.C. mayors at UBCM 2022. [Photo Fran Yanor]

“You can’t put together a system that can address that all the time, he said. “There’s no system that can deal with that, and that’s just the reality of it.”

“If you lose two people at Vancouver General, you’ve got 1,500 others working in hospitals,” he added.

“But if you lose two people in Merritt or somewhere, qualified in emergency services, then that really hurts you in keeping it open.”

ER diversions big election issue in north

In the two Peace Region ridings, the stability of healthcare has become a hot election topic at the doorstep.

“The one that is on everyone’s lips that first comes out is the ER diversions,” said Larry Neufeld, the BC Conservative candidate for Peace River South. 

“Northern disaffection, northern alienation, this adds to it immensely. It’s really an unfortunate thing to hear.”

More has to be done to recruit and retain doctors, said Nefueld, who is an engineer from Dawson Creek. It’s not just money, but selling to physicians the lower cost of living and beauty of the north, he said.

Mike Bernier, the region’s MLA who is running for re-election for BC United, said it’s an issue affecting the larger area.

“That’d be like telling somebody in Langley the nearest hospital they can go to is in Kelowna.”

Mike Bernier

“Over the weekend every hospital in the Peace Region was on diversion except Dawson Creek,” said Bernier.

“You can imagine if we had to divert that one, what would have happened — a four hour drive to Prince George for the Peace Region.

“That’d be like telling somebody in Langley the nearest hospital they can go to is in Kelowna, and please drive there. You can understand why people are frustrated and getting mad.”

BC United, BC Conservatives say more private sector needed

The Conservatives and United agree on calling for an end to the vaccination requirement for healthcare workers.

But outside of that, their positions on healthcare appear different.

United has called for the use of more private healthcare providers, a patient bill of rights, performance targets in the healthcare system and better access for patients for their own health records. 

Bernier also wants to explore contracting doctors, like nurses, to specific communities.

The Conservatives don’t yet have a health care platform, though leader John Rustad has said the party’s eventual position will involve an overhaul involving the private sector.

“I’ve seen basically next to nothing from the Conservatives out there saying elect us and this is what we’ll do to fix the problem,” said Bernier. 

“All they are doing is saying elect us if you hate the NDP.”

Not so, says Neufeld.

“I’m hearing that people are hungry for a change,” he said. “What would differentiate us from what United is proposing, honestly, is not significant because every time we release something United takes something we say and makes it their own.”

Local governments left to find solutions

As the NDP seeks to explain the problems, and the other parties duke it out to lead the criticism, it’s still falling to people on the ground in communities to try to find actual solutions in the present day.

For Dawson Creek, it was about showing a vote of confidence in the future of doctors working at the prominent clinic beside the hospital, said Dober.

“Without health care you don’t have anything, he said.

“We felt we could help out. We’re really hoping to listen to those doctors and the professionals and everybody in our community on how we can be creative and help with the solution.”