Northern Adventures and New Agreements

More adventures on the road!  Last week my Communications Coordinator and I visited the North, with scheduled stops at Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, and Prince George.  

I learned a few new things!  I didn’t know that Grande Prairie, Alberta was en route to Fort St. John, but that’s where we got deposited 3½ hrs after our scheduled landing in Fort St. John.  

We had to drive back into BC that day and en route to Dawson Creek we experienced “ice fog” – I didn’t even know there WAS such a thing!  So take a look at these photos, they were taken about 15 seconds apart, and the truck in the left photo is still there…somewhere.  

I also learned about the vastness and the grandeur of the North, like the Peace River Valley in the photo below.  Immense distances, awe-inspiring beauty, and much of it formidable during a lot of the year.

I also had the privilege of meeting with many of our colleagues in those three communities (excluding Grande Prairie, of course!).  They are a strong, capable, and self-reliant group.  And yet I wasn’t hearing strength in their voices or seeing it in their eyes.  I heard worry and stress, bordering on fear when they talked of the future.  There aren’t enough doctors in many areas of the North.  The work load is escalating with industrial development, and the hours required to provide services has been increasing.  They also feel the disconnect between themselves and their Health Authority, just like the Kootenays and Interior do, and are feeling marginalized in the decision making processes affecting their professional lives.

When I was in Dawson Creek and Fort St John I really wanted to blurt out the news about the tentative new agreement and its provisions, but it wasn’t until the Prince George meeting that I was able to discuss it openly.  So to my colleagues in the first two communities…my apologies, but I’m more afraid of our Communications Department and what they would have done to me, than I am of you!

A full copy of the tentative new agreement with government will be emailed November 12th and hitting your inbox.  Please watch for it. Despite the fact that it was negotiated in a challenging economic environment with a government that had a tough negotiating mandate, we have a very strong agreement.  It is good for our patients, and it is good for us.  And because it’s a 5-year term it provides stability and some respite from constant negotiations – leaving some time to work on system redesign that will rejuvenate us moving forward.

The agreement provides funding for each physician to address the rising costs you each face including growing overhead and benefits costs, and covers the majority of the recent large increase to CMPA costs. On top of that, it has repeated the trend of earlier agreements to provide the majority of new funding to targeted populations, and the most exciting funding, expanding on what I wrote above, is:

• Significant funding to address rural issues such as recruitment and retention of physicians as well as funding to substantially improve the services offered by the rural locum programs; the funds to be allocated by the Joint Standing Committee on Rural Issues.
• Significant funding to specialists to address not only intersectional disparity, but also interprovincial disparities.  This will serve to retain our specialists and to recruit more.  I also hope it will help repatriate some of our colleagues who are working out of province
• A never-been-done-before, made in BC initiative that provides a process for specialists and facility-based doctors to engage with their Health Authorities and provide meaningful input into process before the decisions are made.  Each Health Authority CEO has signed a document promising that their HA will engage meaningfully with the local Medical Staff Associations. AND these Medical Staff Associations will receive funding, just like Divisions have, to develop staff and other supports to enable them to do this.
• Significant increases to funding for the GP Services Committee as well as more funding to the Shared Care and Specialist Services Committees to continue their innovations, including ongoing funding to Divisions and the Practice Support Program.

These are just a few highlights.  I encourage you to read the document and the supporting information when it arrives – and I encourage you to approve this new agreement.

To me, this agreement provides not only the promise of some relief of immediate issues, but also provides us with a strong, influential voice as we discuss the major issues we face: human resources, team-based care, telemedicine, IM/IT enhancements, to name just a few. And these conversations will shape our profession for many years, if not decades, to come. And when I, or the next President, meet with you, our colleagues, your voices will reflect confidence and assurance.

Dr Bill Cavers
President, 2014-2015