Episode #4 of the Your Health Care Matters Podcast! We sit down with Dr. Darren Joneson, MD, to explore his passion for team-based care, mental health care, and the power of advocacy. Heartfelt insights into the challenges patients face. #BC #healthcare buff.ly/4gcdzq8

Josie Osborne, here’s a tip: 90% of health care funding needs to go to front line professionals, and 10% to admin. Here’s another: double the family medicine residency spots, #everyonehasafamilydoctorin4years and you’ll get elected again. You’re welcome. @markroseman @dr_voon

Your Health Care Matters podbean.com/pu/pbblog-zruuy-…

Wonder why trying to get health care in BC feels like trying to get bread in the old Soviet Union? (and no, this is not a "left-wing, communism, socialism" screed...) 🧵1/6

Ask your MLA candidate about their commitment to Healthcare. As healthcare continues to be a pressing issue in British Columbia, it's essential for voters to engage with political candidates on matters that directly impact the well-being of communities. buff.ly/3XPHUVP

The BC govt spends over $26 billion per year on health. We have about 16,000 doctors and I don't know how many nurses. If they routinely can't keep emergency rooms open, it's because those resources aren't being deployed where they're needed. Period. 1/3

We are going to be losing a few really busy family doctors on the North Shore over the next couple months. Docs who’ve devoted much of their lives to their practices. One for 40 plus years. They’ve tried for years to find replacements. Just not able to. One forced to leave for the USA because government and regulatory bodies couldn’t get their act together. There are going to be many thousands of people who are receiving letters saying they no longer have a doctor. Where else will they get care? Maybe you’re one of them? Comment below. For leaders listening this is going to be an election issue. Many of your constituents in pretty close races are going to be impacted. Let’s hear your plans. Regurgitating what you’ve done when it’s clearly not working for these thousands of people ain’t an answer.

1/20 🧵BC NDP bet big on Urgent and Primary Care Centres (UPCCs). Critics say they're expensive, horribly managed, and don't deliver what they promised. I reviewed the govt's own data, obtained via FOI. The critics are right. Strap in. Full details at takingaction.ca/upcc/

I have a solution. Let’s make it really difficult for Canadians who’ve trained in Australia, Ireland, the UK (and others) at world class medical schools to come back to BC. While we are at it let’s limit residency spaces and training in BC to way below population growth. Now to round this plan out let’s offer crazy amounts of tax payer dollars to a burnt out pool of existing doctors to try to convince them to do even more hours. Heck with this plan we will be able to close even more ERs. Oh. Wait. Uggg. Forget this. Government has already figured out and is implementing this plan.

I hate to say "I told you so." In May 2023, MoH claimed cost would be $7300/patient. My calculations were $10,500 USD ($14K Can)/patient. Data suggests it's $16,000/patient (treatment only). Willing to provide math help @bcndp. x.com/SKGandhiMD/status/1658… cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c…

Today I learned more about the Danish 🇩🇰specialist referral system. It was a system so logical and patient-centered, it made me want to cry Here is some of what I learned 🧵 (here's screenshot of the publicly-available, searchable database of ALL specialists in Denmark)

I am having to add “lack of access to primary care” as a medical problem on discharge for more and more complex patients. This worsens patient outcomes and ends up costing you a lot more in tax dollars in the long run.

It’s almost as if it would have been better to train enough doctors, get on with licensing those Canadians who trained in places like Ireland and Australia, expand residency positions, allow physician assistants, and a host of other policy ideas instead of burning out our current docs while spending huge amounts of taxpayer dollars. But hey maybe eventually just pouring more money in to the status quo will work out at some point 🤪

Have been warning of this. The march to privatization is turbocharged right now as Ford gets emboldened by the lack of pushback.

How is that >98% of Danes have a GP? Part of the answer lies in their approach to training physicians. Here's a summary of some of what I've learned on my trip to Denmark 🇩🇰 🧵 (the photo here is a wall of some of the 170 residents trained at the practice I visited)

Take a look at the huge march & rally against Ford's privatization of our public health care! We are continuing to build the fightback. We will not let them privatize our public hospitals. #onpoli #onhealth #toronto

I have a complex patient population. I have a busy practice (about 6,500 personal patients vs median of 971). I’m very careful (as I should be) with your tax dollars. My cost to you as tax payers is $238.51 per patient per year. That’s way below median cost. Let me hire a team. Independently review my cost to you. Open book. Let me be effective and efficient. More money won’t fix healthcare. We spend enough. Innovation, decentralization, and focusing on front line care delivery not bureaucracy is needed. Doubling down on old ideas does not move us forward. It just costs you more money for less care. Team based care. It can work.

Damn Twitter. Damn the ❤️ button. Damn hitting the button prematurely. Damn oppo research. Damn lots of premature decisions.

Another tone-deaf, gaslighting, disingenuous, election season post that fails to address the real healthcare issues. Make public health work to prevent illness. Empty hospitals don’t prevent illness or take care of patients. Medicine is about people. Not stuff. Not votes.