“Respect the citizens who are living there.”
–Sharon Hartwell
The B.C. legislature was seized with debate this week over the first major hospital diversion in Metro Vancouver, after Delta’s emergency room was shuttered for two nights due to a doctor shortage. Urban residents were outraged, but for rural communities who’ve been battling the issue of diversions and shortages for years, major healthcare challenges continue to go quietly under the radar.
Conservative MLAs lined up in the legislature today to list almost 20 emergency room closures since January 2023, spanning more than 1,407 days, in small, rural communities across the province.
They outlined stories of residents having to drive hours to other emergency rooms, where they could face hours more in wait times during a crisis — a situation rural mayors have been years calling unacceptable and unfair.
“Elkford’s ER dept in my riding has been closed for over two years,” said Kootenay-Rockies MLA Pete Davis. “Why did the premier do nothing to prevent Elkford’s ER from closing?”
The healthcare question period was capped off by Surrey-White Rock Conservative MLA Trevor Halford, who noted even urban ERs that remain open are deluged by long wait times, like 18-hour waits at Surrey Memorial.
“The last 30 minutes have been a pretty damning indication of the state of our healthcare here in British Columbia,” said Halford.
“Every part of this province has been represented today speaking about the state of our healthcare. Can you imagine having our ailing child in the back of your car and having to drive 10 hours to access an emergency room department? That is the state.”
“The last 30 minutes have been a pretty damning indication of the state of our healthcare.”
Trevor Halford
Health Minister Josie Osborne expressed sympathy for the closures, and pointed to long-term changes to build another medical school in Surrey. She also claimed ER diversions are down 40 per cent in the last six months, and criticized the Conservatives for a lack of solutions.
“We’ve canvassed many diff comms across B.C. in today’s question period,” said Osborne. “I didn’t hear any ideas from the opposition.”
Fruitless 10-year lobby for ambulance station
One example brought up by new Conservative MLAs during the week was in Kitwanga, north of Terrace, where the community has been trying for 10 years to get a local ambulance station, after paramedics refused to continue to work out of a donated 1940s forestry building that contains mold.
They’ve raised more than $900,000 locally, from years of bake sales, fundraisers — and the unique annual tradition called the “Humpy Run” where people bid on pink wooden cutouts of salmon (named after the humped back of a salmon during spawning season) and race them down the Kitwanga River for prizes.
Even local mining companies have pitched in. The community needs $1.5 million. But the health ministry and ambulance service won’t put up a dime.
“It’s been a struggle,” said Cathy Morgan, of the Kitwanga Community Association, whose group has for years been bounced between mid-level bureaucrats in the ministries of health, public safety, municipal affairs, emergency management, health authorities and emergency health services.
“It’s been a struggle.”
Cathy Morgan
The province already funds paramedic and crew chief positions for the unincorporated community of approximately 800 residents, surrounded by three larger first nations. But without crew accommodation, the positions can’t be filled.
It’s a classic bureaucratic conundrum — one arm of government providing operational funding for a service that can’t happen because another arm of government won’t help construct the building to operate it in.
“It’s been a decade we’ve been on this journey,” said Morgan.
The group got nowhere, even when the region was represented by previous NDP cabinet ministers Nathan Cullen and Doug Donaldson.
‘Denied, pushed off, set aside’
This week, the new Conservative MLA for Bulkley Valley-Stikine, Sharon Hartwell, took the issue to Health Minister Josie Osborne directly in the legislature, demanding action.
“The residents have raised $900,000 through bake sales, bingo games and local business donations, yet not one thin dime from this government after repeated asks,” Hartwell said to the minister.
“Residents have already lost lives due to the lack of emergency services in the region. Will the minister step up to fund this critical piece of public safety infrastructure in B.C.’s north?”
Osborne’s answer: Maybe.
Her ministry later said it was “exploring the possibility of having a new ambulance station in the community” — though that’s news to the residents, and hasn’t reflected years of general inaction by the government.
“They have reached out to every single ministry, every single person, every single person they can in the last ten years,” Hartwell, the former mayor of Telkwa, said in an interview.
“Cathy has sent me eight pages of contacts, denied, pushed off, set aside, not answered.”
Rural incentive doesn’t apply to all communities
Kitwanga wasn’t the only rural health issue raised in the legislature this week.
Columbia River-Revelstoke Conservative MLA Scott McInnis said his communities of Cranbook and Kimberley are having difficulty recruiting healthcare staff because, inexplicably, they aren’t considered rural enough to qualify for a Provincial Rural Retention Incentive (PRRI) that offers nurses an extra $8,000 to work in small communities.
“We’re a 12 hour drive from Vancouver and a seven hour drive to Kelowna General, we see communities like Merritt, which is an hour and 20 minutes from Kelowna, and their healthcare workers received the PRRI,” McInnis said in an interview.
“So essentially, my question is, why are Kimberley and Cranbrook left out?”
“Why are Kimberley and Cranbrook left out?”
Scott McInnis
“Our hospital, the East Kootenay Regional Hospital, is maxed out. We’re at 108 per cent capacity. We’re having a really difficult time attracting and retaining healthcare professionals.”
Here too — no answer from Osborne, who was quizzed on the issue in question period. “There is a defined set of communities and occupations that are eligible for this incentive,” she said.
Previous health minister Adrian Dix said in 2024 he’d consider the issue, after the BC Nurses’ Union requested Kimberley and Cranbrook be included.
The patchwork system of included communities is actually leading to staffing shortages, said McInnis.
“Another challenge that we’re seeing with that is some of the outlying communities in my riding in Columbia River-Revelstoke do receive this PRRI, so let’s say Invermere and Golden, we’re seeing some of the local healthcare professionals from Kimberley and Cranbrook actually looking to transfer to some of those smaller communities, because they get paid more and they’re commuting,” he said.
“So it just makes no sense to me.”
‘We’ve been sidelined’
The provincial decisions made in Victoria on healthcare generally make little sense in rural B.C., added Hartwell, who is only in the second week of her first legislative session as an MLA but is already frustrated by the fact closures in urban areas like Delta get more immediate attention and action by the province.
“It’s interesting but it’s kind of shameful in my mind,” she said.
“They don’t have mines in the Lower Mainland. They don’t cut down forests in the Lower Mainland. The resources come out of the north. And we’ve been sort of sidelined, for lack of a better word, for expediency, for money coming down here.”
It’s especially galling as Premier David Eby seeks to add mines to the “golden triangle” region north of Terrace, for the purpose of growing the economy and services that help urban residents, said Hartwell.
“Respect the citizens who are living there,” she said. “They live there because they love it. It doesn’t matter if there’s 500 or five. They pay taxes. They deserve to have the services that they need.
“They shouldn’t have to travel 18 hours somewhere or spend 18 hours in a waiting room. To me, it’s just shameful, absolutely shameful.”