B.C NDP Leader David Eby pledged to hire 45,000 new health care workers over the next four years by during a health-care related campaign appearance in Coquitlam, where Jodie Wickens (Coquitlam-Burke Mountain) and Jennifer Blatherwick (Coquitlam-Maillardville) joined him.
The stop saw Eby repeat policies first announced while in government and pledges made after the start of the campaign in reaching that stated goal, which appears in the party's platform released last week in Surrey.
Proposed policies toward reaching that goal include the addition of new training spots for doctors at the University of British Columbia and the opening of a new medical school in Surrey, first promised during the 2020 election and scheduled to open in September 2026; loan forgiveness for health care workers trained in B.C. if they stay in rural and remote communities for five years; and faster recognition of health care workers trained in other provinces or abroad as part of an expanded recruitment campaign.
"We have a whole health care human resources strategy that we are deploying and we need to do more," Eby said.
Along with housing, health care ranks among the most important issues in the current election campaign and Eby used Thursday's appearance to once again warn of cuts in health care should the Conservative Party of B.C. under Leader John Rustad win the election.
Rustad refuted that claim during Tuesday's debate when he said that his party would invest an additional 3.8 billion over three years among other measures to improve the health care system with a party pledging an overall transformation toward a continental European health care system. He made that pledge as part of a larger defence of his party's plans in accusing Eby of lying.
Speaking at the same time in North Vancouver against the backdrop of statements deemed anti-Muslim by Conservative candidate Brent Chapman, Rustad doubled down on his defence. "He is a pathological liar," Rustad said of Eby.
More to come...
