New Rural Health Chair Announced
Health Minister Terry Lake
Prince George, B.C.- “We saw that extraordinary super moon last night, and I think the stars are starting to align” . Those are the words of Dr. Dermot Kelleher, dean of the UBC faculty of medicine on the announcement of a new Rural Health Chair.
Backed with an endowment of $5 million dollars and $350 thousand a year over the next five years, the role of the Rural Health Chair will be to work towards improving the delivery of health care services to rural British Columbia.
“British Columbians in rural and remote communities face unique challenges in accessing health care” says Minister of Health Terry Lake . Those challenges include geography, weather, available services and transportation to other centres for treatment. Minister Lake says the work will see collaboration with researchers and practitioners on how to to improve the systems of care in rural BC as there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution “The practical reality is that these areas need a customized approach to health care delivery”
Dr. Dave Snadden, who was the former head of the Northern Medical program in Prince George, has been appointed to lead this new venture. Based here in Prince George, Dr. Snadden will provide academic leadership in rural affairs, establish relevant research, and address rural physician recruitment and retention. Over the past couple of years, some communities in B.C. such as Quesnel and Ft. St John, have faced challenges as physicians made the choice to leave. Dr. Snadden says he will “Explore the challenges faced by rural practitioners, as well as what’s working for them. With that knowledge, we can resolve the difficulties and replicate the successes.”
Dr. Snadden says this opportunity will give a voice to rural health for practitioners and patients alike”If you really think about it, there are great things happening in rural practice, and I would like to help people develop that more, and let others know about these great things. We are doing great things in connecting communities, with tele-health, Doctors, nurses and other health disciplines all working together, all to give patients better access .” Yet, Dr. Snadden says there is so much more to be done “There is much for us to do to address the needs of rural patients, and it will take many of us working together to make a difference.”
Comments
They would serve us just a little bit better if they read ” the royal flying doctor service of Australia ” at Wikipedia . They’ve been doing what is proposed for a very long time and much , much more .
“Over the past couple of years, some communities in B.C. such as Quesnel and Ft. St John, have faced challenges as physicians made the choice to leave”
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So in addition to the challenges that Lake mentioned for people accessing health care (geography, weather, available services and transportation to other centres for treatment), perhaps he should mention the elephant in the room, that being the challenge of attracting doctors to smaller rural communities, when they can choose to practise pretty much anywhere they want.
“all to give patients better access”
Well, how about this for starters
Terry Lake directing Cathy Ulrich, CEO of Northern Health to use our existing Angiogram specialist to commence angiograms in Prince George.
Couple million a year in patient costs for transportation and lodging and perhaps more.
Health care is all about saving lives right? Get us a dedicated air ambulance system, THAT will save lives. Or has the lower mainland gobbled up all the money for that as well?
Can one assume that the $350,000 per year is his annual salary guaranteed for the next 5 years?
Happy to hear that Terry Lake has admitted that it isn’t a one size fits all system. Until we change from a disease management system to a health creation system, the taxpayer will continue to fund a system where people will remain chronically ill and the associated costs will continue to skyrocket.
BC Liberals closed rural hospitals and replaced them with a bus with travel costs that are expensive for elderly people on fixed incomes as well as for their families who often take time off work and pay for their own travel and accommodation, they wasted $132 million over the last 6 years failing to deliver doctors like they promised in 2010 and 2013, went $72 million over-budget for electronic health records system, in 2013 they budgeted $90 million less on front-line health care services than in 2012 just in time to say they balanced the budget for the election, now they’re charging for the use of wheelchairs in senior’s homes, have understaffed and privatized care for our seniors, we have longer wait-lists, MSP fees that are increasing every year, less than half mental health beds that were promised last election, a fentanyl crisis for 2 years now but they won’t ban pill making machines or increase addiction services beds. Now we’re supposed to be dazzled while they take front-line dollars to the tune of $6.7 plus million for another bureaucrat and his office.
Tricorder.xprize.org is going to go a long way to taking out random diagnosis at the touch of a button . It a Qualcomm ten million dollar prize about to become reality . They call it making science fiction into reality . I think that about sums it up .
The biggest disruption of the medical industrial complex about to be finalized and not a peep . It was a little different in 2012 when the xprixe was announced . The medical industry freaked out and carpet bombed the idea on the xprixe blog . Will they lobby Ottawa to keep it out of canada ? That would not surprise me because the benefit would be shared by all of us and that’s not the way the system is set up now . And misdiagnosis should just about disappear .
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