Family doctors are urging the B.C. government to take immediate action to deliver on its platform commitments now that the cabinet is in place and Josie Osborne has been appointed as the new health minister.
The BC College of Family Physicians would like to see the need for sick notes eliminated for short-duration illnesses.
They said recent survey data showed that roughly 30 per cent of a family physician’s time has been spent on administrative tasks, including sick notes, and that Premier David Eby has promised to ban employers from mandating a sick note.
“We’re going to do it as quickly as we can,” Osborne said, “but we’re going to do it right. So we’ll work with doctors, with Doctors of BC, on developing options.
“Right now, I don’t know if that’s going to require legislative change or not but in due course we certainly will know and we’ll get that in place as soon as we can.”
Dr. Jennifer Lush, family physician and board member of the BC College of Family Physicians said they are asking Osborne to sit down with family physicians at the earliest possible opportunity.
Osborne said she looks forward to sitting down with them.
Data provided by the college shows that 40 per cent of family physicians in B.C. plan to retire or pull back their clinical duties in the next three to five years.
Osborne said the Health Connect registry is still the key to making sure everyone in the province is connected with adequate health care.
She said since 2018, more than 570,000 people have been attached to a family doctor or nurse practitioner.