The Premier says dialogue and not a public inquiry is the way to deal with issues in B.C.’s long term care homes.

John Horgan was asked about concerns around staffing levels amid allegations in recent months where people have complained of deplorable conditions in some care homes.

“My email box is always available. If people want to send me their views, what they saw, what their concerns are,” he said on Thursday. “But I think we’ve had a tremendous response making the commitment to do better during this very very difficult time. And the results today are far superior to what they were months ago.”

“We absolutely want to hear from families who have loved ones in care facilities…I believe we can do that through dialogue with public health officials, with operators, with the various health authorities across the province. I don’t believe we need a public inquiry to do that.”

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix acknowledge that many of the issues around staffing levels and the care of seniors in care homes have been amplified during the COVID-19 outbreak. A number of the 186 COVID-19 related deaths in the province have been seniors in long term care homes.

As it stands, Henry says there are outbreaks at two long-term care homes and one acute care facility in the province.

Horgan notes a report by Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie in 2017 found that about 86 per cent of long-term care homes were not meeting provincial standards for hours of care per patient, which he says was the result of years of neglect and under funding by the previous government.

“And that was the result of many many many years of neglect, under-funding and trying to squeeze more people into places that they could not fit, and not adequately building new infrastructure so that we could have state of the art facilities so that our healthcare workers could provide the care that seniors so desperately needed,” he said.”

Horgan says his government has made improvements to the conditions in care homes across the province since taking over after the 2017 election.

“I’m not for a minute going to try and erase the situation that some of these families saw and felt at the time, but I’m very confident that we’ve gone well past that, and we’re in a position – unlike any other province in the country – where we can be quite proud of the work that we’ve done and acknowledge that we have much more work to do,” he added.

“The silver lining for long-term care in British Columbia from the pandemic – although regrettably we have dozens and dozens of deaths of people because of the outbreaks – we have learned from those experiences. We were on the right track leading into this, we have more learnings now, and we’ll be better going forward.”