Globe and Mail, Thursday July 3, 2014
A culture change has been quietly transforming health care in the British Columbia, replacing past animosity and rancour between doctors and government with a new climate of co-operation – and B.C. patients are the winners.
As a Victoria family doctor for 34 years, I have witnessed this transformation firsthand. A decade ago, relations between the B.C. government and the medical profession were at an all-time low. Back then, health-care spending had been growing by an unsustainable average of 7 per cent each year. The number of new medical graduates going into family practice was declining sharply and walk-in clinics were exploding in number, while doctors and government blamed each other for the problems.