Monetary incentives insufficient for rural healthcare crisis

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – Paul Adams, the Executive Director of the BC Rural Health Network, joined Dub Craig for the July 19th episode of This Week in the Peace to discuss rural healthcare challenges.

Part of the organization’s mandate is listening to and bringing light to rural residents’ struggles with healthcare.

“We’ve been in a rural healthcare crisis in B.C. for decades. It is not a new situation, we always have very difficult times with recruitment and with retention,” Adams said.

With the introduction of health authorities and an over-centralization of healthcare, Adams said opportunities for healthcare workers in rural parts of the province were reduced.

Adams explained that a large aging population, the COVID-19 pandemic, and retiring healthcare workers are putting pressure on an already-strained healthcare system in rural B.C.

When asked about the effectiveness of the various monetary incentives currently being offered by Northern Health for healthcare workers to work in northern and rural communities across B.C., Adams explained that money alone cannot solve this problem.

“It doesn’t matter how much money you pay somebody, that may attract somebody for a short duration of time, but they need to have a quality of life, both working and pleasure,” Adams said.

Rebuilding community infrastructure and increasing the number of rural students in the medical field are just a few solutions Adams listed that would improve the state of healthcare in the region.

“These things aren’t rocket science from the standpoint of complexity, but we really haven’t put much attention into that,” Adams said.

Adams explained that the province should avoid involving politics in healthcare and instead work together to solve the problem of healthcare in rural communities.

“There’s straightforward, common sense solutions that we can all come up with, and obviously the system is very complicated, and there’s many levels to it, so it’s not just an easy situation, but the time to start making those changes is now,” Adams said.

To watch the full episode of This Week in the Peace, see below.