BC Health Minister Josie Osbourne announced the launch of the province’s health authority review to ensure resource allocations are supporting critical patient services and minimize unnecessary administrative spending.
“Government is committed to ensuring health authorities are functioning as effectively and efficiently as possible, and that programs and governance make sense when tackling the complex challenges facing health care today,” said Osborne. “That’s why we’re reviewing each health authority to confirm patients, their families and health-care providers are benefiting from the most possible and the best use of resources directed to front-line patient care.”
The Provincial Health Services Authority has been selected as the first health authority to undergo review due to its provincewide role providing services and an array of additional shared services, such as information technology and lab services, across the health system. The PHSA provides provincial services through BC Cancer, BC Children’s Hospital, BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre, BC Emergency Health Services, BC Mental Health and the BC Centre for Disease Control.
Osburne says there is no set timetable set for the PHSA review. “But I have asked for the first update in six weeks. It wouldn’t make sense to undertake a PHSA review without thinking about the context of the regional health authorities with a new deputy minister who begins at the ministry of health on Wednesday. One of her first tasks will be to initiate those reviews. ”
Cynthia Johansen from the B-C College of Nurses and Midwives will be stepping into the role of deputy minister at the Ministry of Health.
The review is something that the Mayor of Merritt has been calling for, for some time. Mike Goetz says he welcomes the review. “I’ve asked for it now for about six months. I think all the Health Authorities should be reviewed just to find out where we are and what the future is. They need to be part of fixing this problem. I’m looking forward to it.”
The emergency department in Merritt has undergone numerous closures over the course of 2025 with Interior Health not providing any reasoning as to why that has been happening. It is assumed it is due to staffing shortages as was the case before the health authority made it a policy not to disclose why it is making such decisions. That problem is not isolated to Merritt with emergency departments in Lillooet, 100 Mile House and numerous other communities experiencing similar issues.
Goetz says it is about time a review of health authroities takes place as he is unsure of when the last time such an exercise was done by the province. “We might be bloated. I mean, with the city here, when this new council came in, we did a review and found out we had seven spots that were being duplicated. We didn’t need those seven spots. So we cut them back, which helped out with taxes. But you got to do it every once in a while.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s been too long now. Whether it’ll help with staffing, I think that’s a completely different situation. I don’t think the reviews are going to do that, but I think the reviews would see whether there’s duplication or if there’s some weak spots that need to be shored up.”
