Ep. 204: Preparing for the Baby Boomer Tsunami
Guest: Dr. Lee MacKay
Over the past 20 years, the portion of the provincial budget dedicated to health care has gone from 30 per cent to more than 40 and rising.
Currently it costs BC $19.5 billion annually and that cost will go up another $2.6 billion when Medical Services Plan premiums are eliminated. At some point soon, the cost of health care will undermine the provincial government’s ability to provide education, social services, transportation and everything else in its scope of responsibilities.
Universal Primary Care is designed to ensure everyone in British Columbia has a doctor – a doctor who knows them, their health history and, in many cases, the history of their immediate family. The challenge, however, is setting a timely appointment. On average, patients wait three weeks to see their doctor.
That wait time is motivating an increasing number of people to utilize the emergency department of the nearest hospital as their walk-in clinic. In doing so, they are plugging up the system and driving up costs.
Interior Health sees the solution in a realignment of resources and personnel who are qualified to expand their scope of practice and speed up care to patients in their physicians office or a walk-in clinic.
We invited Dr Lee MacKay, who practices medicine in Nelson, BC, to join us for a Conversation That Matters about realigning resources and staff in the Grand Forks Boundary area in an attempt to get ahead of the impending baby boomer tsunami.
