B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad promises to overhaul the provincial health care system along models used in Europe and Australia among other measures announced Thursday.
Rustad said B.C.'s health care system would remain a single-payer system that would deliver care through both government and "non-governmental" facilities. Those non-governmental facilities may be private facilities or types of organizations.
"I don't want to be biased in one way or another," he said. This is about making better use of existing resources and expanding services to patients, he added.
This promise to deliver health care through non-public operators is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Conservatives' proposal, but Rustad points to the experiences of Scandinavian countries. He said they deliver better health care services for less money than Canada, pointing to various national rankings.
"All we need to do is to look at the results," he said, when asked about a potential backlash to a growing private component in health care. "Other jurisdictions in the world are doing far, far better than us."
He also stressed that patients won't see a difference in the quality of care.
Conservatives are also promising to cut wait times, which could also mean that British Columbians could be travelling to other jurisdictions to access various forms of care.
"So when it comes to diagnostic services or surgeries, these are the wait times that we are talking about," Rustad said. "We will be working with health professionals and...try to meet those standards that need to be set for acceptable wait times for services."
Rustad specifically singled out wait times for cancer diagnoses and surgeries, calling them "horrendous" and "beyond acceptable."
Rustad coupled this promise to reduce wait times with the promise to re-direct resources away from health care administrators and toward front-line staff in drawing a comparison between Canada and Germany. Whereas as Germany has twice the population, it has one-tenth the amount of administrators, he said.
Conservatives billed Thursday's announcement as the first major policy announcement prior to this fall's provincial election. But some of the elements had first seen the light of day earlier.
When Rustad spoke to the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce last month, he held out European health care systems as models worthy of emulation. Thursday's announcement also saw provincial Conservatives repeat their long-standing promise to reverse legislative changes governing medical professionals and scuttle the vaccine mandate for health care workers to help stop emergency room closures in rural communities.
Rustad said a Conservative government would drop the vaccination mandate on the very first day of assuming office.
"We are also going to make sure that we put a monetary system in place to incentivize health care workers — doctors and nurses and other health professionals — who work in those under-serviced (rural) areas, so that they can better perform...," he said.
Other announced measures include steps to protect health workers from the harmful effects of drug use in hospitals among other safety measures and steps to improve the system through greater data transparency and accountability.
Thursday's announcement included a slew of statistics to underscore its central arguments concerning the state of provincial health care.
“Our system is collapsing," he said. "Throwing more money at this problem won’t solve it."
Thursday's announcement did not come with a cost estimate. Nearly four of 10 public dollars spent in B.C. go toward health care, and Rustad acknowledged he lacks "precise numbers."
"But our priority will be putting patients first and making sure that the resources are made available to deliver services that are needed," he said.
Rustad noted he is anticipating an "initial spike up in spending" that would eventually level off as the transition toward a Scandinavian-style health care system starts generating savings and improves performance.
When asked how this "initial spike up in spending" might be reconciled with the promise to bring B.C.'s budget back under control, Rustad said an incoming Conservative government would "need to take a deep dive" to look at the current numbers. Rustad criticized B.C.'s record-setting deficit of nearly $8 billion as "completely unacceptable" because it is "burdening" future generations with "irresponsible spending."
But he acknowledged that reforming provincial finances would be a challenge.
"I do not anticipate that we are going back to a balanced budget immediately," he said. "We are going to be working toward that path to get back to a balanced budget. But we need to make sure that we put priorities first and patients are going to be the top priority for us in terms of health care and making sure that patient services are being delivered to patients."
