Wednesday June 12, 2024 | COLWOOD, BC [Updated June 15, 2024]
Socioeconomic political reporting by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Health-care workers need affordable housing close to where they work. That was the overall thrust of a by-invitation mixer-style workshop held in Colwood on Tuesday evening.
The Saunders Family Foundation hosted an evening for community leaders in the health-care sector and west shore region. Dave Saunders led the evening, with his family helping out with setup and attendance.
The workshop portion — during which participants were brain-picked for ideas on how to improve health-care worker housing affordability scenarios — was led by urban planning consultant Mark Holland.
And why have an in-person launch of the playbook? “There is true power in community,” said one of the speakers.
Some respondents felt the three workshop questions were wordy and quite similar, hammering home about needing more housing supports for health-care workers. At the previous workshop in 2023 the open-ended long answers may have been too much work for the report-writing team to plow through, but the quality of the answers from last night’s event may fall short.
It will be interesting to see how the handwritten results composed over five to 10 minutes will be as comprehensive as they could have been, given the interruption by the moderator and speakers from the crowd using a microphone.
Meanwhile, Saunders does say that “the launch was intended to be a very brief working exercise to get people thinking and take home their thoughts”. Workshop participants will be contacted by Saunders, for followup.
Saunders also stresses that “municipal politicians become knowledgeable about how health-care support is actually delivered” because it affects their local communities.
Community Healthcare System Support (CHSS) Playbook:
Holland also guided the release of the new Community Healthcare System Support (CHSS) Playbook, in print format to each participant. Feedback provided by workshop participants will be included in the next version of the playbook.
The CHSS Playbook is intended to serve as “a road map for BC that describes ways communities can support and retain their current health-care and emergency workers and recruit new ones”, says Dave Saunders, President, Saunders Family Foundation.
The 17-page detailed text-heavy playbook is available online through the Healthy WestShore organization that is supported by the Saunders Family Foundation.
The Scope of Considerations as outlined in the document is extensive. The document even gets into municipal Official Community Plan (OCP) content regarding health-care and emergency workers. There are sections on land use and growth management, housing, transportation and economic development.
Saunders says the Playbook was developed in collaboration with physicians, nurses, healthcare workers, local governments and business leaders.
Saunders emphasizes that the approach to supporting health-care workers with recruitment and housing supports “is not an offloading of responsibility by the government”.
But this direction innately relies on municipalities accepting more responsibility for the broader aspects of health-care delivery. According to one west shore mayor (as told to Island Social Trends) it seems that’s the way it’s going, without significant resistance from the province.
Attracting & retaining health-care workers:
Mention of the broader doctor shortage in BC was muted. Rather, the local focus was about recruiting and retaining doctors as well as nurses and medical office assistants (MOAs).
It was specifically pointed out last night that if MOAs can’t afford to rent or buy a home in the region, they aren’t available to owner-operators of local health-care facilities. Two private or Society-owned clinics are hoping to open in the Colwood area (preferring to remain anonymous, as stated by the West Shore Primary Care Society), but may find themselves short-staffed.
The audience heard a few times how poorly paid MOAs are. Pay level for office operational staff is a whole other conversation (as is the skill level of MOAs when they are relied upon to essentially pre-triage by phone at some clinics like the provincial Urgent Primary Care Centers).
Without MOAs no doctor’s office or health-care clinic can function. The issue of insufficient pay seems like the weakest link in addressing the local health-care availability challenge.
Who was there:
Headlining the speaker’s list at the event was Health Minister Adrian Dix. He was accompanied at the head table by local MLA Mitzi Dean (Esquimalt-Metchosin / riding changing to Esquimalt-Colwood) who is presently Minister of State for Child Care, along with local MLA Lana Popham (Saanich South) who is currently the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport.
Also addressing the crowd for a few minutes each were Dr Mark Sanders of the Cowichan Primary Care Society, Angela Wignall of the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of BC, and Alyssa Andres of the West Shore Primary Care Society.
A few remarks were given later on from the floor by local housing developer Jim Hartshorne regarding some level of commitment to ‘attainable’ housing for health-care workers in condo buildings developed by his company KeyCorp.
Attending in the crowd were City of Colwood councillors David Grove, Kim Jordison, Misty Olsen (who delivered remarks on behalf of Mayor Doug Kobayashi who for health reasons was unable to attend), and Ian Ward.
“Bravo to you and well done,” was the closing remark in Kobayashi’s message, delivered by Olsen. Kobayashi has often told his own health story that motivated him to make sure health-care is available locally in the west shore.
Attending from the City of Langford were Mayor Scott Goodmanson and city councillor Mary Wagner.
Long-time politicians who have since retired also attended including Stew Young (former Langford Mayor), Lanny Seaton (former Langford councillor), and Dianna Seaton (a former Sooke School District 62 SD62 trustee).
There did not appear to be any representation from the current SD62 school board in attendance (apparently Trustee Christine Lervold — daughter of Lanny and Dianna Seaton — was invited but was unable to attend due to family health matters).
There did not appear to be anyone present from the Town of View Royal council, a municipality that has the Victoria General Hospital centrally within its borders.
A representative from the West Shore Chamber of Commerce attended, as did a rep from the office of local MLA Ravi Parmar (Langford-Juan de Fuca).
There was no official participation by Island Health. Island Health operates the privately-owned West Shore Urgent Primary Care Centre (UPCC) in Langford, officially opened by Minister Dix and then-premier John Horgan back in November 2018.
With the BC provincial election coming up fast, Green Party candidate for Esquimalt-Colwood, Camille Currie, attended. She has built her political profile in recent years around the doctor shortage issue.
Also attending on Tuesday evening was Alix Arndt, Executive Director of the BC Naturopathic Doctors. At this point in time NDs are not usually included in the range of offerings at the province’s now 79 Urgent Primary Care Centres (UPCCs).
Colwood setting a new beat:
The City of Colwood has been trying to set up a fresh local community model for ensuring there are enough doctors for local residents.
In March 2023 Minister Dix had meetings with Colwood council during a visit to the west shore where he made an announcement about a new long-term care facility being constructed in Colwood (set to open in 2027). The medical clinic issue was discussed at Colwood Council later last year, with a directive to staff in 2024 to develop more details.
In the past Health Minister Dix has insisted that various organizational models for health care have been set up around the province in being responsive to local community need.
There are one or two local doctors in Colwood who have spearheaded a customized clinic approach.
All this despite that Canadian society still seems to believe that there is an entirely public health care system in Canada. But variations on privatization have crept in over the years, including privatized walk-in clinics and specialized services for particular types of diagnostics and day-surgeries.
Maintaining public health-care:
Colwood council seems to want to offer health-care services to Colwood residents first.
The federal government’s Strategic Policy Branch, Canada Health act Division, Health Canada has stated in a letter this year: “Under the accessibility criterion of the Canada Health Act, Canada’s federal health insurance legislation, provinces and territories are required to ensure all residents have reasonable access to insured hospital and physician services on a prepaid basis, and on uniform terms and conditions.”
The letter continued: “For example, implementing a policy or arrangement whereby certain insured residents (e.g. Colwood residents) would gain preferred access to insured health services over other insured residents (e.g. non-Colwood residents), would raise concerns about the uniform terms and conditions required under the accessibility criterion of the Act.”
Local MLA:
“We’re committed to and providing better health-care to people across BC and building a stronger health-care workforce, and locally-informed strategies are a vital part of that work,” said Mitzi Dean, MLA (Esquimalt-Metchosin) after the event.
“I was pleased to be able to attend this event and hear from community members and stakeholders who are working on local solutions,” said Dean, the following day.
Kudos to Dix:
At one point during the evening, the assembled group gave genuine hearty applause to Health Minister Adrian Dix when Saunders declared that BC’s health minister had guided British Columbians through a once-in-a-generation crisis — referring of course to the COVID pandemic.
===== RELATED:
- Construction tour at upcoming Westshore Mental Health and Substance Use Service Hub (June 8, 2024)
- BC gains 708 net-new family doctors but there’s still a shortage (April 5, 2024)
- Colwood council explores partnership with private health care companies (January 16, 2024)
- Doctor shortage contributes to people paying more for smaller prescription refills (December 5, 2023)
- 260 long-term care beds for seniors coming to the west shore in 2027 (March 22, 2023)
- West shore long-term care boost aims for 2027 completion (March 19, 2023)
- New urgent primary care health centre in Langford to open November 5 (October 26, 2018)
===== ABOUT THE WRITER:
Island Social Trends Editor Mary P Brooke, B.Sc. has been reporting on the broader west shore since 2014 and beyond that about BC politics since 2020.
Mary P Brooke is the publisher of a series of now four news publications over 17 years: MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (2011-2013), West Shore Voice News (2014-2020), and Island Social Trends (2020 to present at IslandSocialTrends.ca). The print publications have been permanently archived at the Sooke Region Museum.
Since covering the COVID pandemic daily in 2020-2022, Ms Brooke has been reporting alongside the BC Legislative Press Gallery.
In 2022 Mary Brooke ran for school trustee in the west shore after her family of four children experienced the BC public education system during 1990-2015 and the ramifications that continued.
In 2023 Ms Brooke was nominated for a Jack Webster Foundation journalism award that recognizes a woman journalist’s contribution to her community through journalism.
In 2024 Ms Brooke has launched the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society (UFRIS) as a further contribution to communities in the South Vancouver Island region.
