British Columbians head to the polls on May 9th. Over the next few days, see what local candidates had to say about some of the major issues.
We asked: Thousands of Kamloops residents are without a family doctor. What will you do to improve access to primary health care?
Barb Nederpel | Kamloops-North Thompson
I work on the front lines in health care and this is a key issue for me, and the patients I support.
Christy Clark promised a GP for me and failed to deliver. Instead she gave a billion dollar tax break to the richest 2% in B.C. We will reverse that tax cut and invest in services like health care. We will open urgent care centres that will provide team-based primary care, including on evenings and weekends.
These clinics will be open to people who do not have access to family doctors, and they will deal with non-emergency care issues like burns and cuts. This will allow us to reduce wait times at walk-in clinics and our hospitals.
Nancy Bepple | Kamloops-South Thompson
The B.C. NDP will establish Urgent Family Care Centres across the province to improve access to primary health care; these centres will include doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and other health care providers. These centres will be open evenings and weekends, and provide the one-on-one health care that Kamloops citizens need.
Peter Milobar | Kamloops-North Thompson
We are seeing good results with expanded seats [in the] TRU nursing program and increasing locum pay. Also the Ministry and health authorities are working to introduce a model that is already being utilized right here in Kamloops as a provincial model for integrated primary and community care throughout B.C. — with family doctors, nurse practitioners and other health professionals working together to provide appropriate care.
Todd Stone | Kamloops-South Thompson
Awaiting response.
Dan Hines | Kamloops-North Thompson
A Green government will allocate $100 million for the expansion of support for interprofessional, integrated primary care to be provided by physiotherapists, nurse practitioners, midwives, dieticians and other health professionals. This will reduce the need for people to see a general practitioner and potentially avert the need for surgery.
Donovan Cavers | Kamloops-South Thompson
My party and I support:
Peter Kerek | Kamloops-North Thompson
We need to stop forcing physicians to become small business operators and employ them directly to practice medicine. The government should run clinics directly in order to alleviate the burden on doctors of having to ensure they have constant revenue in order to keep paying all the overhead costs of their practice.
This would allow doctors to have a better quality of life and take time off as needed without worrying about their practice collapsing. We also need to produce more doctors through our universities, and we can encourage that by eliminating post-secondary tuition for doctors and all post secondary studies.
Beat Klossner | Kamloops-South Thompson
Decades of neglect has gotten into this situation and it will not be fixed overnight. We need a huge investment not just into health care but also in post-secondary education in order to train the nurses and doctors needed. The money, we will get from those who have it.
We stop the corporate well for the imaginary LNG industry Site C Dam and other projects and instead will invest them for the common good. It is also obvious that the proposed Ajax mine project is keeping many professionals away from our region, and with good reason.
Jessica Bradshaw | Kamloops-South Thompson
Awaiting response.
