Abbotsford’s two Liberal MLAs say that the local Urgent and Primary Care Centre (UPCC) remains “chronically understaffed” and is failing to meet the health-care needs of residents.
Mike de Jong (Abbotsford West) and Bruce Banman (Abbotsford South) say Ministry of Health data indicates that the UPCC – opened two years ago – has only 53 per cent of the staff for which it was budgeted and only eight per cent of the physicians it should have.
They point to figures released in April of this year – compiled from Feb. 4 to March 3 – which show that the Abbotsford UPCC is approved for 19.5 staff but has only 10.3.
De Jong said the UPCC is “failing to make a difference” for people in Abbotsford without a family doctor. He said the centre didn’t even start offering urgent care until last November.
“This is not what the people of Abbotsford were promised — it is time for real action from government to address the health-care crisis in our community,” he said.
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Banman said that, instead of opening more medical centres, the NPD “needs to get serious about training, recruiting and retaining health-care workers.”
“It’s all too clear our health-care system is in crisis, and decisive action from government to address the situation is long overdue. People deserve to have confidence in their health-care system, but right now they don’t,” he said.
NDP MLA Pam Alexis (Abbotsford-Mission) said the government is focused on addressing staffing challenges and will continue to expand services at the local UPCC, but “it takes time.”
“Since the UPCC in Abbotsford opened in April of 2020, the existing staff and health care professionals have helped over a thousand residents who didn’t otherwise have a doctor connect to one and it has had over 20,000 visits,” she said.
Alexis said accessing primary care is a challenge faced by governments across B.C., Canada and the world, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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She said B.C. has nearly doubled its entry-level medical residency positions since 2003 and the province now has the largest family medicine training program in Canada.
“Recently, we announced 602 new nursing seats as a part of the StrongerBC Economic Plan to address the nursing shortage, and we have more in the works to find solutions to alleviate the burden on health-care workers and to address capacity issues,” Alexis said.
The Abbotsford UPCC is operated by Fraser Health and is located at 2692 Clearbrook Rd. It is among 27 primary care clinics across the province.
It is designed to provide health care for people who do not have a primary-care provider and urgently need services, particularly during evening and weekends when care is difficult to find outside of the emergency department.
vhopes@abbynews.com
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