BC’s Health Minister says that all 501 sites in the province have now implemented single site staffing.
Adrian Dix says all 8,878 employees who previously worked at multiple sites are now assigned to a single site.
“Facilities are currently completing their data to submit to the health authorities so funding can start to flow. Individual wage increases will be retroactive to the date the site was placed under a single site staffing order.”
“I initially estimated the cost of implementing all the single site plans and wage leveling at $10 million per month. Now that the transition is complete and more data are known, I will be in a position to provide you with an update on cost figures in the weeks and months ahead.”
Dix says other jurisdictions have understood the importance of what the single site order was intended to do and it was supported by everybody including the unions involved, the BC Care Providers, the Denominational Health Association, by the Health Employers of British Columbia and led by the team led by Stephen Brown at the Ministry of Health.
“It’s important to do the work and not just make announcements. Do the work and people have done the work. And our health system, and our residents, and our seniors, and our workers are better for it. And I am very,very proud of all of them.”
When it comes to surgeries, Dix says when the surgical plan was announced on May 7, the expectation was for the health system to be back to full capacity in surgeries by the middle of June. “I am happy to report that we are there. In the week from June 8th to June 14th 6,291 surgeries in that week were completed in British Columbia. 4,955 were scheduled surgeries, sometimes known as elective surgeries, and 1,336 of them were unscheduled.”
“Just to put this in context, in the week of April 6-12 there were 972 scheduled surgeries and 1,104 unscheduled surgeries for a total of 2,076. Six thousand surgeries is roughly what the health system does in a normal week in BC and represents I believe, under the circumstances with COVID-19 still around us and the fact that we had to ramp up again, an extraordinary achievement by health care workers and by health care professionals in our province and I salute them today.”
