The leader of BC’s Green Party believes getting physician assistants regulated in BC would help fill gaps in our crumbling healthcare system.
Pointing to the one million British Columbians without a family doctor, and the ongoing Emergency Room closures, Sonia Fursteneau says all solutions must be put on the table to fix issues with the healthcare system.
“The solutions need to be focused on how are we getting better and more reliable health care to people in the most efficient and effective ways.”
She suggests nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and better working conditions for nurses, as well as the changes brought to the fees for doctors would help address staffing shortages.
“Ultimately what we need is team-based care, so that everybody providing those health care services is in a position of wellness and being able to have a sustainable work-life balance.”
Additionally, Fursteneau says their new deputy leader, Dr. Sanjiv Gandhi, laid out earlier this week the value Physician Assistants have on the healthcare system.
“He was a heart surgeon in the United States for many years and had physician’s assistants on his team and he talked about how this not only improved quality of care for his patients but was actually a more cost-efficient way of ensuring that there was that team of, you know, health care providers working together in a way that that really made sense.”
It comes following calls from the Mayor of Port Hardy, currently part of the locally formed Rural Health Alliance, who is looking at the option of physician assistants to ease its impending emergency medical crisis.