MLA Dr. Anna Kindy: Let’s be like Japan and introduce options within our universal healthcare system
CAMPBELL RIVER, BC — Dr. Anna Kindy, MLA for North Island and Official Opposition Critic for Health, is bringing attention to the urgent need for more options within our universal healthcare system.
“For British Columbians, wait times absolutely dominate our experience with the healthcare system. But in countries like Japan that have a diversified healthcare landscape, wait times are simply a nonissue” said Kindy.
“In Japan, surgeries are done within a day, week, or month, depending on the urgency and patient preference. Waitlists like we have in B.C. and in Canada just don’t exist.”
As recently highlighted by think tank SecondStreet.org, the Japanese government works with doctors who enter the market and set up their own clinics. The service providers receive the fee set by the government for each patient they see – the same fee a public provider receives. This is in stark contrast to Canada, where the supply of healthcare is restricted by government.
In turn, a 2020 OECD study of wait times across eight categories – from emergency rooms to elective surgery to cancer care – showed that Canada faced problems in all eight areas, and Japan had no problems in any.
“We need options within our universal system. Japan has an older population than Canada but still manages to have no waitlists,” said Kindy.
“Our provincial and federal governments trim costs by cutting services, rather than improving productivity. We need alternatives. We need to look outside our borders, to public universal systems that are objectively functioning better than ours.”
Upwards of 4,500 British Columbians died while waiting for diagnostic scans or surgeries in the year 2023-2024.
“Limiting access to healthcare has been the reality of ‘universal’ healthcare in B.C. for years. This rationing of healthcare has increased dramatically in the last few years since demand has far outpaced B.C.’s ability to fund for healthcare,” said Kindy.
Improved access to a primary care provider is the first step to improving pathways to specialist appointments, imaging, and surgeries, but one in four B.C. residents are not attached to a family physician.
“Our universal healthcare system has been perpetually stuck in the 1970s and has not evolved because most of our politicians and policy makers have lacked courage or been ideologically driven. This is an urgent matter – people are dying on waitlists. We need to introduce options into our system now, not in five or 10 years,” said Kindy.
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Media Contact:
Lindsay Shepherd, Conservative Caucus Communications Team
lindsay.shepherd@leg.bc.ca
