DARPAN FEATURE
HOW MUCH
LONGER?
The case of delays in BC’s healthcare system By Naina Grewal
On the acute care side, since each wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has been bigger than the previous one, waitlists for surgical, screening, testing, and other procedures have gotten even longer.
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MARCH | APRIL 2 022
Reflecting The South-Asian Lifestyle
DARPAN
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anada’s publicly-funded universal health care is often regarded as one of the most important and appreciated accomplishments of the nation. However, every coin comes with two sides, and recently, the province of BC, specifically, has been under scrutiny for continued delays in the healthcare system. Given that multiple incidents, including cancer treatment and screening delays, are being reported, the issue is a pressing one. While the Ministry of Health points out that urgent and emergent scheduled surgeries are able to proceed, non-urgent scheduled surgeries have been postponed, most recently as of December 21, 2021, when Minister of Health, Adrian Dix, and Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry made this announcement. In terms of steps being taken to resolve the issue, the Ministry TM
We added time in the public system for surgery, we added hours at the beginning or the end of days, we added weekends to surgery slates in order to address both those backlogs and to reduce surgical wait times in certain areas.” - Hon. Adrian Dix BC Minister of Health
of Health asserts that surgical renewal efforts have been consistent and deliberate. Between March 16, 2020 and January 29, 2022, the province has completed 578,327 scheduled and non-scheduled surgeries. In a single week (January 23-29, 2022, for example), 6,028 surgeries were completed. This is compared to 837 postponements for the same period. In fact, data shows that only 320 non-urgent scheduled surgeries were postponed between February 6, 2022 and February 12, 2022. Earlier in the pandemic, the Ministry of Health did make a surgical renewal commitment to patients to get them their postponed surgeries, to get more surgeries to more patients faster, and to change the way we deliver surgeries in BC. From the Ministry of Health’s office, Krystal Thomson, Manager of Government Communications and Public Engagement details, “Since making that commitment,
