“We’re very committed to improving public health care in that region, not just maintaining things but improving things,” Dix said in a phone interview this week.
Physician assistants train for two years to assist doctors with multiple tasks but can’t work independently and are not regulated or trained in B.C. The category, proposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. in 2020, is for internationally trained doctors who are not yet qualified to practise as full-fledged doctors in B.C. but “could have, under supervision, a significant scope of practice,” said Dix.
Dix said there is no single solution to the health-care staffing crisis on the north Island — just a number of steps in a short, medium and long-term plan. In late November, Dr. Nicole Bennett-Boutilier, medical director for Mt. Waddington-Strathcona, wrote an email to Island Health president Kathy MacNeil obtained by the Times Colonist that said lab technicians “are being pulled in multiple directions,” nurses are calling in sick frequently and not wanting to pick up extra shifts, and physicians are suffering from mental and physical fatigue.
The BCNDP completely destroyed this province.