Doctors in Surrey have released an open letter endorsing the NDP’s direction on health care and expressing worry about what a BC Conservative government would do.
“As doctors who call Surrey and south of the Fraser home, we are deeply invested in the health of our residents,” says the letter signed by 23 doctors and one nurse practitioner. “We witness first-hand the need for a robust health-care system that can meet the diverse needs of all our citizens.”
Surrey has 10 of the province’s 93 constituencies and is a key battleground that has been visited regularly by both NDP Leader David Eby and BC Conservative Leader John Rustad during the election campaign.
The region’s population is rapidly growing and straining resources, said the doctors’ letter, and there is a need for timely care for children, comprehensive maternity care, support for the aging population and more cancer care services.
“The reality is that our system had been chronically underfunded for decades,” it said. “Despite not always agreeing with the BC NDP on various issues, we have found common ground over the last number of years on the issue of improving health care in Surrey.”
There has been progress, it said, listing the new Surrey hospital that’s under construction, the regional cancer centre, more long-term care beds and a new cardiac catheterization lab. “These investments are crucial,” it said, “but there is much more work to do.”
A change of government could be detrimental, they wrote.
“We are worried about what we have heard from the BC Conservatives about the potential for budget cuts and shifts toward privatization,” the letter said. “History has shown us that these approaches can undermine the progress we’ve made and create further disparities in access to care.”
The for-profit systems used in other countries can “erode the quality and accessibility of essential services,” it said.
Rustad has said that a Conservative government would not cut health spending and that it would use more private delivery of services while keeping the single-payer public system.
Asked Thursday about the doctors’ letter, Rustad said, “The only place they’ve heard about cuts is the lies from the NDP.”
A Conservative government would add $3.8 billion to spending on the health-care system, he said. “We have to do an adjustment because it is unable to meet the needs in British Columbia.”
As evidence of Rustad’s plans to cut, the NDP points to BC Conservative documents promising to “reduce wasteful spending” on health care and bring spending down from 12.4 per cent of GDP to 11 per cent. The NDP says that works out to a $4.1-billion cut, about 12 per cent of the health budget.
The doctors also criticized Rustad’s comments about vaccines, which they said undermined public health advice and medical science.
During the election campaign, video emerged of Rustad saying he regretted receiving three doses of the “so-called” COVID-19 vaccine and accusing health officials of trying to control the population.
In the Tuesday debate Rustad said that he isn’t anti-vaccine, but that he is opposed to forcing or coercing people to be vaccinated.
“It is essential that our leaders make decisions based on science and the best available evidence, rather than pandering to specific subsets of society,” the doctors wrote. “We need them to prioritize the health and well-being of the entire community.”
They encouraged residents of Surrey to consider the importance of continued investment in the public health-care system. “Together we can maintain the positive trajectory we’ve established and build on the work that has been done over the past seven years to ensure that our community’s diverse health-care needs are met.”
Signing the letter were nurse practitioner Meghan Dewar and doctors Kirn Bains, Harry Brar, Anna Chlebak, Harmeet Dhaliwal, Randeep Dhami, Baljinder Dhillon, Navneet Garcha, Younas Jan, Sumeet Kalia, Harman Kaur, Yashika Kaushal, Calvin Li, Kim Louie, Vanessa Nicolau, N. Papalia, Jagpaul Sahota, Reece Schemmer, Nishant Sharma, Navneet Sidhu, Hulbert Silver, Shweta Sundarajan, Husnain Syed and Shweta Yadav.
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Read more: Health, BC Election 2024, BC Politics
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