Years of hiding problems rather than fixing them has led to Kelowna hospital crisis: Dew

Kelowna-Mission MLA Gavin Dew says his communication lines have been blowing up of late.

He’s spent recent days talking with many healthcare professionals working in the region who he says feel unheard and are “frankly fearful” of the system they work in.

Dew provided a few examples of what he’s heard during those conversations about the working conditions at Kelowna General Hospital (KGH) and Interior Health (IH).

“Culture of fear.”

“Fear of retribution.”

“Leadership is authoritarian.”

“These folks are genuinely fearful of speaking out within their own work environment,” Dew told NowMedia video host Jim Csek in an interview earlier this week.

The discussions between the MLA and healthcare professionals have ramped up as a result of two ongoing crises at KGH – the biggest hospital in the BC Interior.

First, a minimum six-week shutdown of the hospital’s general pediatric unit was announced on May 22. Just over a week later, nine members of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at KGH released a statement warning that maternity care at the hospital is “facing a collapse.”

IH has blamed the ongoing issues on a shortage of doctors, with the region's executive medical director, Dr. Sam Azzam, telling NowMedia earlier this week that it was made worse with the May 31 resignation of three family physicians in the Central Okanagan Maternity Clinic.

Azzam did not address the claim made by Dr. Hannah Duyvewaardt, later backed by the Doctors of BC and repeated by Dew during his interview with Csek, about three quarters of the 20 pediatricians in Kelowna choosing not to work at the hospital due to burnout and workload challenges.

Over the past two weeks, well over 100 healthcare professionals have either spoken out or lent their names to statements that call for systemic change within IH.

It’s change they say they’ve been calling for long before things reached a boiling point in Kelowna two weeks ago.

“There has been seemingly just this broken culture, a lack of listening, a lack of hearing (and) a lack of effort into retention, so you have a very frustrated cohort of doctors,” Dew said.

“We’re not going to fix the healthcare system unless we rebuild trust and reopen communication, and start actually taking seriously the highly-trained frontline professionals who know exactly what is happening in the hospitals and facilities that they work in.”

The MLA says it’s clear that healthcare workers have feared being shunned or shut down if they speak up, but they should feel like they can be part of a solution.

“They’re not just there to complain. They’re there to tell you how they think it could be better,” he explained, citing the recent conversation he’s had with doctors and nurses.

And the issue isn’t just with a lack of listening, Dew adds, but with a lack of transparency coming from leadership as high up as the provincial level.

He cited Health Minister Josie Osborne’s March 2025 claim of 1,001 new doctors added to the system in BC as an example of what he called “cherry-picked numbers.”

After being pushed by Vancouver Island Conservative MLA Brennan Day, critic for rural health and seniors’ health, Osborne reportedly admitted that 560 doctors left the system during the same period.

So rather than a hair over 1,000 new doctors working in BC, the actual result was a net gain of around 440, and Dew notes that doesn’t even take into account trying to keep up with the demand of rapid population growth.

“What I think we continue to see from this government is a focus on hiding problems versus fixing them and we continue to see a focus on political posturing over actual solutions,” he claimed.

Dew says it’s clear that the healthcare system is “under tremendous strain, if not collapsing.”

“We clearly need a change in direction and tone and leadership. That starts at the top with the premier, with the minister of health, and all the way down through health authority leadership.”

To watch the full discussion between Dew and Csek, click this link.